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Rochet's Statue at Falaise, France. 



William the Conqukror. 



ALLYN AND BACON'S SERIES OF SCHOOL HISTORIES 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

REVISED AND ENLARGED 



BY 
CHARLES M. ANDREWS 

FARNAM PROFKSSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY 
IN YALE UNIVERSITY 



>>»«c 



ALLYN AND BACON 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 



ALLYN AND BACON'S SERIES OF 

SCHOOL HISTORIES 

12mo, cloth, numerous maps, plans, and illustrations 



EARLY PROGRESS. By Willis M. West. 

MODERN PROGRESS. By Willis M. West. 

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. By Willis M. West. 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles M. Andrews. 

SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles M. Andrews. 

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By John Holladay 
Latane. 



COPYRIGHT. 1903 AND 1921. BY 
CHARLES M. ANDREWS 






Nortoooti ^rcss 

J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



JUN 14 1921 
©CI.A617331 



I 



PREFACE. 



In revising and enlarging this History of England, my purpose 
is to bring the text up to date in matters of scholarship and 
bibliography and to continue the narrative to the present time, 
in order to describe Britain's part in the Great War, the progress 
of events that have led to the attainment of democracy within 
the United Kingdom itself, and, also, the constitution and gov- 
ernment of the present empire in all its varied and scattered 
divisions throughout the world. 

It has been well said that English history, beginning with 
Magna Carta and ending 'with the law granting suffrage to 
women, is the most complete record of "freedom slowly broad- 
ening from precedent to precedent" in the annals of human 
evolution, and that the British Empire of to-day is the most 
important and fascinating problem in political and constitutional 
government that the world has ever seen. Alluring though 
our subject is, its very complexity makes difficult the writing 
of a simple, clear, and well-proportioned narrative, for Eng- 
land's history covers fifteen centuries of time, includes the 
many divisions of a steadily widening empire, and embraces 
manifold achievements relating to the life, character, and prog- 
ress of the British peoples. England's contributions to the 
world's civilization have been solid and enduring, not dramatic 
and sensational, and have concerned the more peaceful aspects 
of human existence — government, legislation, agriculture, 
industry, commerce, and finance — quite as much as the stirring 
incidents of land battles and sea fights. 

To tell this story without rhetoric and without excessive 
detail has been my aim throughout. Matters of proportion, 
perspective, and a proper arrangement of material have been 
constantly in mind, and the desire has been strong to make a 



iv PREFACE. 

book that would be interesting as well as instructive, teachable 
as well as scholarly, that would encourage the teacher to take 
a large and independent view of the subject and the pupil to 
realize that a history of such significance is worth the attention 
of any one who wishes to have an intelligent understanding of 
the affairs of to-day. 

The apparatus of this book consists of a large number of 
maps and genealogical tables, a carefully selected list of books 
that would be useful in any school library, a detailed chrono- 
logical table, footnote references to source books, and bibliog- 
raphies of the best and most recent works of an authoritative 
character treating of periods or aspects of English history. 
The references to source books are designed to call the atten- 
tion of the teacher systematically, and at the proper place in 
the narrative, to such original documents as have been made 
available in print. The use of these references must depend 
very largely upon the time and inclination of the teacher ; but 
I believe that if but one small book — such, for example, as 
Miss Kendall's excellent collection — be at the teacher's dis- 
posal, it will be found convenient to know at the proper places 
in the narrative what documents are contained in it. I hope 
that these references may encourage a wider use of original 
sources to illustrate the text. The bibliographies and foot- 
notes are intended for the teacher's interest, and not for the 
pupil's. The footnotes are designed to call attention to criti- 
cal questions and problems in English history ; the bibliog- 
raphies, to furnish a comprehensive list of the best books, 
with a brief commentary. It is no small part of the educa- 
tion of a teacher — whether he be the writer or the user of 
a textbook — to know what is the best that has been written 
upon a certain subject, even though there be neither time nor 
opportunity to read it. 

For aid unstintedly given, in the preparation of the first 
edition, I wish to thank again my former student and personal 



PREFACE. V 

friend, Miss Neilson of Mt. Holyoke College, who placed her 
experience as a teacher and her knowledge as a student of Eng- 
lish history freely at my disposal. 

For services at all times loyally and efficiently rendered in 
the preparation of manuscript and the reading of proof, I owe 
a lasting debt to my wife, which I can repay but scantily in a 
grateful and loving acknowledgement. 

Yale University CHARLES M. ANDREWS. 

January 14, 1921 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

List of Maps ........... xvi 

List of Genealogical Tables ....... xvii 

List op Illustrations ..,,..... xviii 

Books Referred to by Abbreviated Titles in Footnotes . xxi 



CHAPTER L — THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. 

SECTION 

1- 8. Early Settlements in the British Isles 1 

9-1 L Introduction of Christianity 9 

12-13. Conflict between the Roman and Ionian Missionaries • • 13 

14-15. Organization and Influence of the Church .... 15 

16. Of£a and Ecgbert 17 



CHAPTER IL — THE DANES AND THE RISE OF 
WESSEX. 

17-19. Invasion of the Danes ...<,..,. 21 

20-21. Alfred the Great 25 

22. Effects of the Danish Conquest 28 

23. Alfred's Work in Wessex 30 

24. Expansion of Wessex 33 

25-26. Eadgar 86 



CHAPTER III. — ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. 

27-33. Anglo-Saxon Government 40 

34-36. Anglo-Saxon Land System 48 

37. Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Life 60 

vii 



Viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. — FROM THE DANISH TO THE 
NORMAN CONQUEST. 

SECTION PAGE 

38. ^thelred and the Danes 53 

39-40. Cnut ' . . 66 

41-42. Government 57 

43. Danish Influence in England 59 

44-46. Cnut's Successors 59 

47. England in 1066 64 

CHAPTER v. — THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

48-49. William the Conqueror . 66 

50-51. Battle of Hastings 68 

52. Introduction of Feudalism 72 

53-55. Government and Revenue 74 

56. Domesday Book 77 

57. The Church 78 

58. General Character of the Norman Conquest ... 80 

59. William II 81 

60. Henry I 83 

61. Relations with Normandy 84 

62. The Investiture Struggle 84 

63. Administration 86 

64-68. Stephen 87 

CHAPTER VI. — HENRY II AND HIS SONS. 

69-71. Henry II : Administration . . .^ . . . . 93 

72-74. Quarrel with the Church 97 

75. Feudal Reaction 101 

76. Work for Justice, the Army, and the Finances . . 104 
77-78. Relations with Ireland and France . . . .107 
79-81. Richard I 108 

82. John : Loss of French Lands 112 

83. Quarrel with the Church 114 

84-88. Magna Carta 115 

CHAPTER VIL — HENRY III AND EDWARD T. 

89-91. Henry III 123 

92. Coming of the Aliens 126 

93-94. Dominance of the Church 126 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



SEOnOW PAGE 

95-99. National Movement i Resistance of the Barons . . 128 

100. The First Great Parliament . . . . . .133 

101. Defeat of Simon de Montfort 134 

102-104. Edward I : His Reforms 136 

105. Conquest of Wales 138 

106-108. Advance in Legislation 139 

109-110. Contentions with Scotland and France . . . 144 

111. Sources of Revenue ....... 147 

112. The Model Parliament 148 

113. Submission of Scotland 150 

114-115. Disputes with the Papacy and the Barons . . . 150 

116. Confirmation of the Charters 154 

117. Peace with France 155 

118. Scottish War of Independence 155 

119-121. Edward II — Mortimer's Regency 157 



CHAPTER VIII. — THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
EDWARD III AND RICHARD IL 



122. Character of the Era 

123. Edward III : Beginning of the Hundred Years' War 
124-125. Parliament : The Revenues 

126. War with France : Crecy and Poitiers 

127, Climax of Edward's Reign . 
128-130. The Manorial System — The Black Death 
131-133. National Degeneracy , . . , 

134. John Wiclif and the English Bible . 

135. Richard II 

136-137. The Peasants' Revolt .... 

138. A Religious Revolt : The Lollards 

139-140. Growth of Parliamentary Power 

141. Deposition of Richard II . . . 

142. The Reign a Period of Social Revolution 



160 
162 
164 
167 
170 
171 
176 
181 
183 
184 
188 
190 
194 
195 



CHAPTER IX. — THE LANCASTRIAN KINGS, 
THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 

143-145. Henry IV 198 

146-147. Henry V , . . 202 

148. Position of Parliament 203 

149-150. Continuation and Close of the Hundred Years' War . 204 



X CONTENTS. 

SECTION PAGE 

151. Henry VI : Factional Struggles in England . . . 208 

152. Jack Cade's Rebellion 209 

153-155. The Wars of the Roses 210 

156. Edward IV 218 

157-158. Richard III ...... .220 

159. Result of the Wars of the Roses ... .222 

160-163. Agricultural and Industrial Changes . . . * , .222 

CHAPTER X. — THE TUDORS AND THE REFOR- 
MATION. 

164. Character of the Period 231 

165. Henry VII 231 

166. Conspiracies against the King 235 

167-169. The King's Council : Position of Parliament : Raising 

Money 237 

170. Attitude toward Commerce 241 

171. Foreign Alliances 243 

172. The Last Years of the Fifteenth Century .... 244 

173. Henry VIII 245 

174. The Revival of Learning at Oxford .... 246 
175-179. Cardinal Wolsey — The King's Divorce . . .248 
180-182. Rise of Thomas Cromwell — Separation from Rome . 254 
183-185. Pilgrimage of Grace — Dissolution of the Monasteries 259 

186. Fall of Cromwell 264 

187-188. External Relations : France and Wales . . .265 

189. Debasement of the Coinage 266 

190. Influence of Henry VIII 267 

191-192. Edward VI : Protector Somerset 268 

193-194. Religious Changes and Social Discontent . . .271 

195. Scottish' Campaign 275 

196. Fall of Somerset 275 

197-199. Tyranny of Northumberland — Lady Jane Grey . . 276 

200. Mary : Character of the Era 279 

201-203. The Catholic Reaction 280 

204. Relations with France : Loss of Calais . . ,284 

205. Elizabeth: Accession 286 

206-207. Domestic and Foreign Difficulties . . . .286 

208. The Religious Settlement . . ... . .290 

209-212. Cecil's Policy abroad and in Scotland . . . 292 

213-214. Mary Stuart 297 



CONTENTS. . xi 

SECTION PAGE 

215-216. England in 1568 301 

217-218. Struggle with Catholicism : the Ridolfi Plot . . 305 

219. The Position of Parliament 308 

220. Poreign Relations 310 

221. Measures against the Jesuits 311 

222. Execution of Mary Stuart 313 

223-224. The Spanish Armada 316 

225-228. Puritans, Presbyterians, and Independents . . 318 

229. Last Years of Elizabeth's Reign 323 

230. The Elizabethan Era 324 



CHAPTER XI.— THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 

231. England in 1603 329 

232. James I : His Character 330 

233. Attitude toward Puritans and Roman Catholics . 331 

234. Quarrels with his First Parliament .... 334 
235-236. Policy of Peace — Commerce and Colonization . . 335 
237-238. Spanish Policy 338 

239. Financial Difficulties ,341 

240. Results of the Reign 343 

241. Charles I 343 

242. Beginning of the Struggle with Parliament . . 344 

243-245. The Petition of Right 345 

246-248. Personal Rule of Charles I 348 

249. The Scottish Revolt 352 

250-252. The Long Parliament 354 

253-255. Outbreak of the First Civil War 359 

256. Oliver Cromwell : Marston Moor : Naseby . . . 362 

257-258. Dominance of the Army : Second Civil War , . . 364 

259-260. Capture and Execution of Charles I 366 

261-262. Establishment of a Republic ...... 369 

263. English Commerce — The Dutch War . . .372 

264. Establishment of the Protectorate 374 

265. Cromwell's Work as Protector 376 

266. Experiments in Government 379 

267. Cromwell's Place in History . . . . .381 
268-270. Restoration of the Stuarts : Charles II . . . .381 

271-272. The Cavalier Parliament 885 

273-274. TheDutch War — Fall of Clarendon . . . .887 

275. Intrigues with France 389 



xu 



CONTENTS. 



SECTION 

276-277. Foreign and Domestic Policy 

278-279. Shaftesbury and the Exclusion Bill 

280-281. The Colonies — Trade and Commerce 

282. Constitutional and Legal Progress 

283. James II 

284-285. Uprisings of Argyle and Monmouth 

286. The Declarations of Indulgence . 

287. The Revolution of 1688 

288. Consequences of the Revolution . 



CHAPTER XII.— EXPANSION OF ENGLAND UNDER 
PARLIAMENTARY RULE. 



289. William III 

290. The Scottish Highlanders : Glencoe . 

291. Irish Resistance : Battle of the Boyne 

292. War with France .... 
293-294. Parties — Government and Legislation 

295. Sources of England's Wealth 

296. Anne 

297-298. War of the Spanish Succession Marlborough' 

tories 

299. Treaty of Utrecht 

300-301. Union with Scotland : Position of Ireland 

302-303. The Hanoverian Succession : George I 

304. Importance of Cabinet and House of Commons 

305-307. Ministry of Walpole — Accession of George II 

308. War of the Austrian Succession . 

309. The Last Pretender . 
310-311. The English in India and America 
312-313. Outbreak of the Seven Years' War 

314. William Pitt, the Elder 

315. Victories in England and America 
816-317. George III : Accession : Resignation of Pitt 

318. Peace of Paris .... 

319. The Religious Revival . 

320. John Wilkes .... 

321. Policy toward American Colonies 
322-323. American War for Independence 

324. Treaty of Paris (1783) 

825. Colonial Acquisitions in the Pacific 



Vic- 



CONTENTS. xiii 

SECTION PAGE 

326-327. Attempts at Political Reforms ; Political Corruption . 468 

328-329. William Pitt, the Younger 470 

330. India: Warren Hastings 472 

331-332. The Revolution in France 473 

333. Union with Ireland , 476 

334-339. The Napoleonic Wars : The Continental System . 477 

340. War with the United States 485 

341. The Peninsular War 486 

342. Congress of Vienna : Exile and Death of Napoleon . 487 

CHAPTER XIII.— ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, 
AND EMPIRE. 

343. The Aftermath of War 491 

344-345. The Industrial Revolution 491 

346-347. Political Reforms — George IV 494 

348-351. Reform Bill of 1832 — William IV 497 

352. Victoria : Accession 503 

353-354. Survey of the Victorian Era : Parties and Ministers . 504 

355. The Chartist Movement 506 

356. The Repeal of the Corn Laws 507 

357. Early Struggles for Home Rule in Ireland . . . 509 

358. Foreign Policy, 1830-1850 511 

359. Material Prosperity : Literature . . . „ . 51 1 

360. The Crimean War 513 

361. The Mutiny in India 615 

362-363. Oriental and Colonial Relations 516 

364. Foreign Policy, 1860-1870 519 

365. New Parties and New Issues 520 

366. The Reform Bill of 1867 . . . . ■ . .522 

367. First Reform Ministry of Gladstone . . . .523 

368. Disraeli's Imperial Policy 525 

369. Russo-Turkish War : Congress of Berlin . . . 527 

370. Wars in Afghanistan and South Africa . . . 528 

371. Second Ministry of Gladstone : Ireland . . . 529 

372. Reform Bill of 1884 631 

373. Policy in Afghanistan, South Africa, and Egypt . 532 
374-376. Third Ministry of Gladstone : Home Rule in Ireland . 533 
377-378. Elections of 1895 : Defeat of the Liberal Party . . 636 

379. Social and Industrial Tendencies .... 637 
380-381. Position of Great Britain Abroad . . . .638 



Xiv CONTENTS. 

Mi'-'ircm PAGK 

•18 382. Australian Federation 541 

*- Ld ^83. The Boer War 541 

384. Elections of 1900 544 

386. Death of Victoria 544 

386. The Victorian Era 545 

387. Edward VII . . 550 

388. Foreign Relations 551 

389. The Elections of 1906 554 

390. The Coronation of George V 555 

391. Constitutional Crisis, 1910-1911 557 

392. Reform Measures 561 

393. The Situation in Ireland 564 

394. The Reform Bill of 1918 . 566 

395. Elections of 1918 . . . ' 568 

396. New Conditions and Problems 570 

397. The Irish Situation, 1920 571 

398. Conclusion 574 



CHAPTER XIV. —THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 



399. The British Empire . 

400. On the Eve of War . 

401. Causes of the Great War . 

402. The Attitude of Germany 

403. Declarations of War . 

404. The Conquest of Belgium . 

405. Great Britain's Effort, 1914-1915 

406. British Naval Supremacy . 

407. Raiders and Sea Fights 

408. The Dardanelles Expedition 

409. Close of 1915 .... 

410. Verdun, 1916 . . 

411. Battle of Jutland 

412. Concerted Allied Drives, 1916 . 

413. Entrance of the United States . 

414. The Russian Revolution . 

415. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare 

416. Allied Victories in the West, 1917 

417. Allied Victory in the East 

418. Pacifist Movement Italy's Defeat 

419. Germany's Last Effort 



579 
581 
583 
585 
587 
588 
590 
591 
592 
592 
594 
596 
597 
598 
600 
603 
603 
604 
606 
606 



CONTENTS. XV 



420. Allied Counter-Offensive . 

421. Collapse of the Central Powers . 

422. Treaty of Versailles .... 

423. Position of Great Britain after the War 

424. Attitude toward Egypt and India 

425. New Status of the British Empire . 



615 
617 
618 



CHAPTER XV. — GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

426. General Remarks ^^^ 

427. The King ^26 

428. The Privy Council ^^9 

429. The King\s Ministers and Departments . . . .631 

430. The Cabinet ^^^ 

431. The House of Lords ^^^ 

432. House of Commons ^^^ 

433. Municipalities ^^^ 

434. Counties, Districts, and Parishes . . . . . 646 

435. Government Overseas ....... 649 

436. The Self-Governing Dominions 649 

437. India ^^^ 

438. The Crown Colonies 653 

439. Protectorates ^^^ 

440. Conclusion ^^^ 



List of Source Books 

List of Books for Practical Use in Schools 4 

Chronological Table 

• 83 
Index ......•••••" ° 



MAPS. 



9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
1.5. 
16. 
17. 
18. 
19, 



The Teutonic Migrations 

Europe at the Death of Justinian 

Alfred's England 

The Greater Scandinavia and Cnut's Empire 
England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland before 1066 
England and France, 1154-1453 .... 
England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, Time of 
Edward I ...... . 

London in 1381 

Western Europe in 1360 

England at the Time of the Wars of the Roses . 

Scotland in the Sixteenth Century . . 

The Netherlands in the Time of Elizabeth . 

England, 1603-1903 . 

Ireland since 1500 

India of To-day . 

County Map of England 

Middle Europe . 

Allied Counter-Offensive . 

The British Empire, 1920 . 



following 


4 


facing 


12 


in text 


27 


u 


56 


facing 


61 


following 


116 


facing 


139 


in text 


187 


facing 


189 




212 




300 




311 




364 




417 




451 




501 


in text 


601 


u 


612 


following 


616 



GENEALOGICAL TABLES. 



10. 

11. 



12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 

16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 



Anglo-Saxon Kings 

Anglo-Danish Kings and House of Godwins 

Kings in Scotland before the Time of Malcolm III 

Norman and Angevin Kings 

Kings of Scotland to 1290 . 

The Disputed Succession in Scotland 

The Claim of Edward III . 

Descendants of Edward III . . • 

The Lancastrians and French Connections 

The Yorkist Family 

Family Connections in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: 
Portugal, Spain, Burgundy, the Empire, England, France, 
Scotland 

The Tudors 

The Howards . - 

The Seymours 
Royal Houses 



Valois, Valois-Orleans, 



of France (Capetian 
Bourbon) and the House of Guise . . 
Lady Jane Grey and the Dudleys . . . • 
Relationship between Mary Stuart and Lord Darnley 
The Stuarts and their Descendants . . . • 
Claimants to the Spanish Throne . . . . 
House of Hanover 



PAGE 

35 

55 

62 

67 

103 

145 

162 

182 

209 

214 



216 
234 
268 

268 

274 
278 
300 
340 
426 
434 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

1. lona Cathedral , . 11 

2. Celtic Cross at lona 13 

3. Alfred the Great . " 25 

4. Extract from Preface to King Alfred's Translation of Gregory's 

" Pastoral Care " 29 

6. Scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry 70 

6. William Kufus 82 

7. Henry I . . . 83 

8. Loss of the White Ship 87 

9. Stephen 90 

10. Henry II 94 

11. Bronze Knocker 98 

12. Armor of the Twelfth Century 106 

13. Knight Templar . , 109 

14. John 113 

15. Sections 39 and 40 of Magna Carta 118 

16. Henry III 124 

17. Seals of Edward III 164 

18. Open Field of the Manor of Lower Hey ford, Oxfordshire . . 172 

19. A Village Street : Cottages in Godshill, Isle of Wight . . 173 

20. Richard II .... 190 

21. Henry IV 199 

22. Warwick Castle 217 

23. Edward IV 219 

24. Farmhouse at Old Sarum, near Salisbury 224 

25. Map of Chalford Farm, Parish of Enston 225 

26. The Guildhall, Worcester 227 

27. Chapel of Henry VII 232 

28. The Tower of London 237 

29. John Colet 246 

30. Henry VIII as a Patron of Learning . ..... 248 

31. Cardinal Wolsey 251 

32. Old London Bridge 258 

33. Ruins of Furness Abbey 202 

. xviii 



ILLUSTRATIONS. XIX 

PAGE 

34. Ruins of Fountains Abbey . 263 

35. Edward VI .270 

36. Queen Mary 282 

37. Queen Elizabeth 287 

38. Elizabeth's Title 291 

39. Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh . . . . . . .298 

40. Speke Hall 305 

41. Sir Francis Drake 312 

42. Guy Fawkes' Lantern 333 

43. Sir Walter Raleigh 338 

44. Archbishop Laud 350 

45. John Pym 353 

46. Oliver Cromwell . . . 363 

47. Carisbrooke Castle 367 

48. Old House in Chester 375 

49. Charles II 383 

50. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon 386 

51. Duke of Marlborough 429 

52. Robert Walpole 438 

53. The Old Tabard Inn Yard, South wark 440 

54. William Pitt, the Elder 449 

55. John Wesley 455 

56. A Chained Bible on the Reading Desk of a Parish Church . 456 
67. Internal Revenue Stamp designed for Use in America . . 460 

58. Lord North 463 

59. Edmund Burke 469 

60. Charles James Fox 470 

61. William Pitt, the Younger 472 

62. George Canning 496 

63. First Adhesive Postage Stamp 603 

64. Richard Cobden 608 

65. John Bright 509 

66. Benjamin Disraeli 521 

67. William Ewart Gladstone 623 

68. The Suez Canal 626 

69. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1877 ' 627 

70. Joseph Chamberlain, in 1885 529 

71. Charles Stewart Parnell 530 

72. Lord Salisbury 534 

73. Queen Victoria 643 

74. Edward VII ......... 660 



XX ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

75. Arthur J. Balfour and Joseph Choate 553 

76. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 554 

77. King George V. and Queen Mary at the Durbar . . . 556 

78. The Stream of Parhamentary Majorities, 1832-1910 . . . 560 

79. Herbert Henry Asquith 562 

80. John Henry Redmond . 564 

81. David Lloyd George 569 

82. Kitchener of Khartum 590 

83. General Sir Douglas Haig 595 

84. General Ferdinand Foch 610 

85. The Big Four 615 






BOOKS REFERRED TO BY ABBREVIATED 
TITLES IN FOOTNOTES. 

Adams and Stephens = Select Documents of English Constitutional 
History. 

A. H. B. = American Historical Beview. 

Capes = A History of the English Churchy Vol. III. 

Colby = Selections from the Sources of English History. 

Durham = English History Illustrated from Original Sources, 1399-1485. 

E. H. B. = English Historical Beview. 

Figgis = English History illustrated from Original Sources, 1660-1715. 

Yra.zer = English History illustrated from Original Sources, 1307-1399. 

Gairdner = A History of the English Church, Vol. IV. 

Gardiner, Documents = Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Bevo- 
lution. 

Gardiner, History — History of England, 1603-1642. 

Gee and Hardy = Documents Illustrative of English Church History. 

Hart, Contemp.oraries = American History told hy Contemporaries. 

Henderson, Documents — Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. 

Henderson, 'Side Lights = Side Lights on English History. 

Hunt = A History of the English Church, Vol. I. 

Kendall = Source Book of English History. 

Lee = Source Book of English History. 

MacDonald = Select Charters and Other Documents Illustrative of 
American History, 1606-1775. 

Prothero = Select Statutes and other Constitutional Documents, 1558- 
1625. 

Translations and Beprints = Translations and Beprints from the Origi- 
nal Sources of European History. 

Warner, Landmarks = Landmarks of English Industrial History. 

S. P. C. K. = Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



' CHAPTER I. 

THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. 

1. The Position of the British Isles has had an important 
influence upon the English people. The narrow strait which 
separates them from the Continent has often saved them from 
foreign invasion and from entanglement in Continental affairs. 
On the other hand, their nearness to the Continent has always 
enabled them to keep in close touch with the civilization of 
European countries. 

2. Celts and Romans in Britain. — Long before the coming of 
the Anglo-Saxons these islands had been occupied, first by 
some primitive and unknown people, later by the Celts, and 
afterward by the Romans. In earliest times, which are called 
prehistoric, two migrations of Celts had taken place. Eirst 
had come the Gaelic or Goidelic Celts, conquering an older 
people, traces of whom can be discovered in certain customs of 
the Celtic conquerors. These Gaelic Celts are the ancestors 
of the present inhabitants of the Scotch Highlands, the Isle 
of Man, and the western part of Ireland. Centuries later 
came the Brythonic or Gallic Celts, whose descendants are to 
be found in Cornwall, Wales, and Brittany. 

When in 55 b.c. Julius Caesar crossed from Gaul into Britain, 
he found the Brythonic Celts occupying a large part of the 
island, and the older Celts forming in Ireland what is known 
as the nation of the Scots, and in northern Britain, the nation 
of the Picts. Of Celtic history from 55 b.c. to 43 a.d., when 

1 



2 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [50-45ft 

the Koman emperor Claudius invaded Britain, we know almost 
nothing. The conquest by the Eoman general Plautus in 
50 A.D. carried the authority of Rome through the southeast 
of Britain, but it was not until Agricola became the Eoman 
governor of Britain (80 a.d.), that the Romans passed north- 
ward and conquered the region which is now southern Scot- 
land. The emperor Hadrian completed the work of Agricola 
in 120 A.D., and built a wall or rampart between the Tyne and 
the Sol way. 

Thus the greater part of southern and central Britain came 
under Roman rule, and was transformed into a Roman prov- 
ince. At first, in 197 a.d., the Romans organized the island as 
a single province ; but later they divided it into two provinces, 
and iinally, about 300 a.d., into four. They built roads, which 
opened to Roman civilization the interior of the island, and 
guarded them by camps or fortresses. Near the roads they 
built country houses or villas of stone, and often equipped them 
with heating and bathing apparatus, and adorned them with 
wall paintings and mosaic floors. Although many Romans 
crowded into Britain, yet the total number compared with 
that of the Celts was small. The upper class of the native 
Britons became Roman, thriving towns grew up, commerce 
flourished, grain was raised and exported, and the arts of the 
Continent were introduced. But the Romans never completely 
subjugated even the southern portion of Britain, while in the 
north their occupation was at best only temporary in charac- 
ter and always precarious. Furthermore, they never trained 
the Romanized Britons in the art of defence, so that when 
the legions were withdrawn and the Roman citizens fled, the 
Romanized and Christianized natives were unable to protect 
themselves. Except for the solidly built roads and villas, the 
walls and inscribed monuments, and the names of their more 
important settlements, the Romans left but few permanent 
traces of their occupancy. 

3. The Roman Empire and the Teutonic Tribes in the Fifth 
Century. — During the fourth and fifth centuries a movement 



450] ANGLO-SAXONS AND JUTES, 3 

took place in western Europe, known. as the "Wandering of the 
Nations." Tribes of Goths, Vandals, Suevi, Alans, and others 
passed out from their old homes in the north and northeast 
and moved into the territory of the Roman Empire. For two 
centuries previous to this, Germans had been crossing back and 
forth between Germany and the Roman Empire, but now for 
the first time whole tribes began to migrate at once. The Visi- 
goths (West Goths) passed into southern Gaul and Spain ; Bur- 
gundians into southeastern Gaul ; Franks into northern Gaul ; 
Vandals into Africa; Ostrogoths (East Goths), and afterwards 
Lombards (Long Beards), into Italy. One group of peoples, 
however, did not go southward,- but westward, and they trav- 
elled not by land, but by water. The Angles, Saxons, and 
Jutes, sailing out into the North Sea, sought the island of Brit- 
ain, and became the ancestors of the modern English. 

4. Anglo-Saxons and Jutes. — The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes 
differed in many important particulars from the other tribes 
that had taken part in that famous " Wandering of the Nations." 
They had lived in a portion of Germany most remote from the 
influence of Roman customs and ideas. The Jutes lived in 
modern Jutland north of the river Schley ; ^ the Angles in the 
region south of the Jutes and along the shore of the North 
Sea; and the Saxons in northern Germany, from the base of 
the Danish peninsula to the mouth of the Rhine. These lands 
were densely wooded, damp, and cold. Rivers were almost the 
only highways ; clearings in the forests were the only dwelling- 
places. No Roman, except an occasional merchant, had ever 
penetrated the country, and no missionary had converted the 
people to Christianity. At the time of which we are speaking 
these peoples were still barbarians and heathen, living under 
primitive conditions, indulging in rude pleasures, delighting 
in adventure, and given to acts of cruelty and bloodshed. 

1 It must be said that the identification of the luti (who with the Angles 
and Saxons came to England) with the Jutes of Jutland is by no means cer- 
tainly made out. Some of the best scholars, Stevenson, for example, deny 
any connection whatever. 



4 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [455 

So far as is known, they had a very imperfect and unformed 
political organization. Their kings were merely chieftains 
who led them in war ; their political meetings were the gather- 
ings of leading men, or of the whole fighting force of the tribe, 
to decide on warlike adventures ; their villages were collec- 
tions of thatched huts made of wood or turf; and their agri- 
culture consisted principally of yearly ploughings of the soil 
and the raising of oats, beans, barley, and the like. The peo- 
ple were divided into nobles, freemen, and slaves ; their villages 
were inhabited by families united by blood and religious ties ; all 
lived on flesh, milk, and grains, and because of the wet climate 
and their rough life, they were heavy drinkers of mead and ale. 

5. Their Migration to Britain. — For a hundred years before 
their migration to the British Isles, the Saxons and their neigh- 
bors had been seafarers and plunderers on the coasts of the 
North Sea. As early as 364 they had been heard of in Britain, 
and the Romans there had established a special official, the 
count of the Saxon shore, to guard the coast from The Wash to 
Pevensey against their attacks. During the remainder of the 
fourth century the unhappy Romans were beset by the Saxons 
on the eastern shore, by the Scots on the west, and on the 
north by the Picts, who ravaged the territory south of the 
Tyne and the Sol way. 

Until 410 the Roman emperor was able, in some degree, to 
protect his subjects in Britain ; but after a terrible invasion 
of the empire by a horde of Vandals, Burgundians, Suevi, 
and other Germans in 406, and the capture of Rome by the 
Visigoth Alaric in 410, the legions were withdrawn, and the 
Romanized Britains — that is, the Brythonic Celts, of whom we 
have already spoken — were left to defend themselves. The 
years that followed, from 410 to 450, were a time of misery 
and terror. The Saxons continued to infest the coasts of the 
east and southeast ; the Picts continued their invasions ; and 
the Scots, crossing in their fleets, poured into Britain by way 
of the Solway Firth, the Dee, and the Severn, and finally 
made a permanent settlement about 500 on the western coast 



i 



\ 



450-600] MIGRATION TO BRITAIN. 5 

of Scotland in modern Argyleshire. The Britons in despair 
made a last appeal to Eome; but in vain. Thrown entirely 
upon their own resources, they resolved to play off one set of 
barbarians against the others. Their chief leader, Guthri- 
gernus or Vortigern, summoned to his aid the warlike Jutes 
under the lead of two chief men or ealdormen, Hen gist and 
Horsa. Then tradition has it^ that these Jutish war-bands, 
landing on the island of Thanet, quarrelled with those who 
had invited them to come, and seized the region later called 
Kent. Thus began the conquest. 

Following the Jutes came the Saxons, the true founders of 
England, under their war-leaders. Landing on the southern 
shore, in 477 according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, they 
carved out a kingdom of their own ; and during the following 
twenty years, grou^^s of independent Saxons fought against 
the Britons of the southwest and won the region about the 
Old Roman city Venta, which is modern Winchester.^ In the 
meantime, and afterward also, came the Angles, probably mi- 
grating as an entire folk, but under the lead of their tribal kings ; 
and by 526 they had occupied the east coast, settling as two 
kingless tribes, the northfolk and southfolk, in East Anglia. 
Others of the same tribes gained a foothold farther north, 
and founded in 547 the kingdom of Bernicia, and in 588 that 
of Deira, covering the coast from The Wash to the Firth of 
Forth, where, curiously enough, Frisians seem to have made an 
earlier settlement. Thus, before the close of the sixth century, 
the Teutonic tribes were in possession of the coast of Britain 
from the Firth of Forth to the Isle of Wight, and were ready 
to push their conquests into the interior of the island. 



1 Colby, No. 5; Lee, Nos. 22, 23; Kendall, No. 3. 

2 Three important papers on the early Saxon conquest have recently been 
written: Stevenson, "Beginnings of Wessex," English Historical Review, 
1899, p. 32; Round, "The Settlement of the South and East Saxons," in The 
Commune of London; and Stevenson, "Dr. Guest and the English Con- 
quest of South Britain," E.H.R., October, 1902, which shows the unrelia- 
bility of much of the evidence upon which Green based his Making of England. 



6 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [600 

6. Conquest of the Interior. — To the new-comers Britain was 
a land of great fertility as compared with that which they 
had left behind them. Little wonder is it that they soon 
advanced to complete the conquest. Of the earlier phases of 
the struggle, from 450 to 550, we know little. Leaving the 
coast, the Teutonic strangers followed the river valleys and open 
places, and occupied the land between fens and forests, wood and 
dike. The resistance of the Britons was desperate. Under 
Ambrosius Aurelius, toward the end of the fifth century, they 
made a stand, but were defeated. They succeeded, however, 
in winning a glorious victory (date unknown, possibly 500) at 
Mount Badon,^ which for the moment checked the advance of 
the Saxons and postponed further conquest for forty years. 

The respite, however, was brief. The second period of 
conquest was for the Anglo-Saxons a time of continuous suc- 
cess. Passing up the rivers from the south coast and crossing 
the valley of the Thames, the West Saxons won a victory at 
Bedford about 571. Six years afterward they broke the re- 
sistance of the Britons in the southwest by winning a battle 
at Deorham (between Bath and Gloucester), thus occupying 
the valley of the Severn and cutting off the Britons in Devon 
and Cornwall from those in North Wales and Strathclyde. 
The Angles, moving westward from the central coast, estab- 
lished the kingdom of Mercia, or the March-land. In the 
north, ^Elf rith, king of Deira and Bernicia, attacked the Brit- 
ons of Wales and the north in 616^ and defeated them in 
a mighty battle at Chester. This victory completed the work 
begun at Deorham, and destroyed the unity of the Britons 
by cutting off those of Wales from the Strathclyde Britons. 
Henceforth, the latter, separated from their southern kin, 
occupied the region between Dumbarton on the north and the 
river Derwent on the south; and as no effectual resistance 
could longer be made by the Britons, it was now only a niat- 

1 Guest supposed that King Arthur was the leader of the Celts at this battle, 
but this is only a conjecture. 

2 This is the date accepted by Plummer. 



600] TRIBAL SETTLEMENTS AND ORGANIZATION. 7 

ter of time until the Saxons should become the dominant race 
in the island. 

7. Tribal Settlements. — During the first two centuries of the 
settlement the conquerors of Britain were not single powerful 
tribes establishing single tribal kingdoms, but rather dozens of 
small tribal groups each under its own war-leader. Of but 
few of these peoples have the names been preserved, and of 
but very few do we know more than the name.^ Some of them 
were groups of warriors, many were doubtless groups of kin- 
families ; that is, families connected by ties of blood, composed 
of men, women, children, and slaves. 

8. Early Organization of the Tribes. — The continued warfare 
of a century and a half had effected many changes in the 
organization of these peoples. In nearly all of the earh 
groups the war-leader, or lieretoga, had become the king. The 
king was generally selected from a single family which was 
supposed to be descended from the gods and stood as represent- 
ing the unity of the tribe. He was awarded the largest por- 
tion of the conquered lands and the largest share of the booty. 
As king he was supported by his pedple, received maintenance 
from them in the form of food and products of the soil, ob- 
tained a share of all fines imposed and lands confiscated, and 
was served personally by the men of the tribe in many differ- 
ent capacities. All these gifts and services became more and 
more definite and exact as time went on, and came to be looked 

iThe Jutes were divided into the East Kent-men and West Kent-men, the 
Marsh-men, the men of Wight (Wihtsaetas) , and the Meon-men, or dwellers 
by the river Meon in Hampshire. The Saxons were divided into East Saxons, 
Middle Saxons, and West Saxons, who called themselves Gewissi; and the 
last named contained many lesser groups, such as the Dorsaetas (Green's 
translation of ssete as settler or colonist is wrong; ssete is sitte?' or dweller), 
Wiltssetas, Sumorssetas, Defonas, Wentsaetas, Magonsaetas, and Hwiccas. 
To the Saxon race belonged also the Surrey-men, who at first occupied an inde- 
pendent district which was afterward seized by the West Saxons. The 
Angles were divided into East Angles, South Angles, Middle Angles (including 
the Chilternssetas, the north and south Mercians, and the Peaksaetas), the 
north and south Gyrviaus or Fen-men, the Lindissi, Avosaetas, and the North 
Angles, including the north Humbrians and the south Humbrians or Mercians. 



8 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [60(J 

upon as special royal rights that the king could grant to others 
if he wished. On his part, the king was the leader of his 
tribe in war and a judge among his people. As war-leader 
he had about him his free-companions called gesithas, who in 
time became the oldest nobility of the kingdom, the pre- 
cursors of the thegns; as judge he was accustomed to enforce 
some sort of justice upon the guilty and to move frequently 
from place to place, himself and his retinue being housed and 
fed by the people. He occasionally summoned the chief men of 
the tribe as councillors, and the latter sat as a body of wise-men, 
advising the king. Once a year, or perhaps oftener, the king 
gathered the adult men of the tribe in a folkmot. This body 
was originally the fighting force of the tribe, because war was 
the chief object for which it was summoned, and the settling 
of disputes, the imposing of fines, and the making of laws were 
objects of but secondary importance. 

Of the local life of the tribe we know very little. The 
people lived generally in groups, sometimes forming a sepa- 
rate community or village, sometimes clustered about the tun 
or farmstead of a chieftain. Their common interests were 
chiefly connected with their religion, their amusements, and the 
tilling of the soil. To each family group was assigned enough 
l^nd for its support, and this portion, called a hide, was not at 
first a fixed amount, bat depended on the nature of the soil. 
That is, if the land were poor, the hide would be larger than it 
would be if the land were fertile. Land was occupied only as 
far as it was wanted for the raising of crops or the pasturing 
of animals. Original allotments of land, called folklands, 
whether given to king, gesithas, or families, w^ere held accord- 
ing to time-honored custom, and could be used or disposed of 
as the customs of the people or folk allowed. Socially the 
invaders were divided into three classes : nobles or eorls, whose 
superiority came from heredity or birth; ceorls or freemen, 
composing the greater part of the tribe; and slaves, some 
brought by the invaders, others obtained by conquest on 
British soil. 



600] ROMAN MISSIONARIES. 9 

Such seem to have been the chief characteristics of Anglo- 
Saxon life before the year 600. Gradually the small tribes 
began to merge into the larger. Some were entirely absorbed ; 
some, though retaining their separate names, were subjugated ; 
and others were united for purposes of conquest. Instead of 
the many small groups already noted, a few larger tribal peoples 
appear: Kentishmen, West Saxons, South Saxons, East Angli- 
ans, Mercians, Northumbrians. Their kings grew steadily in 
importance and influence, although we still read of sub-kings, 
and of subordinate but separate peoples as late as the middle 
of the tenth century. 

9. Introduction of Christianity by Roman Missionaries : in 
Kent. — All these people were pagans, adhering to the worship 
of Woden, Thor, and Tin, gods of the woods and the sky and 
the powers of nature, — a fact that had come to the notice of 
the great missionary pope, Gregory, when he was a deacon 
in Rome. He sent Augustine,^ the prior of his own monastery, 
to preach the word of God to the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and 
in 597 the latter, with nearly forty other monks, landed on 
the island of Thanet in Kent. Augustine had chosen Kent, 
partly because it was the best known and most powerful of 
the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and partly because its king had 
married a Frankish princess. Bertha, who was an orthodox 
Christian. Immediately on landing, Augustine sent a mes- 
sage to the king, telling him of the object of his coming; 
and a few days later ^thelbirht, who had refused to allow the 
monks to come into the town, went to the place where they 
were, and sitting in the open air for fear of magic, listened to 
the preaching of Augustine. At its close he gave the monks 
full permission to reside in the chief town of the Kentishmen, 
Canterbury (burg of the Cantwara), and to win as many as 
they could to Christ. From that day Christianity took root in 
England, and soon ^thelbirht himself, his gesithas, and his 
people accepted the faith and were baptized. Augustine was 

1 Colby, No. 6; Lee, No. 24. 



10 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [600 

made "archbishop of the English nation," and new workers 
were sent out. But outside of Kent progress was slow. 
Though the dependent East Saxons and East Anglians out- 
wardly accepted the faith, they did not long retain it, but 
went back to paganism after the death of ^thelbirht in 616. 

10. In Northumbria and Wessex. — In the year 625 an effort 
was made to carry Christianity into Northumbria, whose king 
Eadwine had married Ethel berga, a daughter of ^thelbirht. 
Ethelberga had taken with her as her preacher Paullinus, 
a monk lately sent from Rome. Through the combined efforts 
of the queen and Paullinus, who was soon made bishop of 
the new region, Eadwine accepted the faith, with the con- 
sent of his wise-men, and was baptized with many of his sub- 
jects. The old pagan priest Coifu was the first to lead the 
attack on the heathen idols. 

For a few years the worldly affairs of the Northumbrian 
king prospered. Eadwine extended the power of ISTorthumbria, 
and, as Bseda says, " reduced under his dominion all the borders 
of Britain, a thing that no British king had done before.'' 
Through his influence the East Anglians were persuaded 
"to abandon their idolatrous superstitions," and Paullinus 
preached the faith through Northumbria and Lindsey. "There 
was," says Baeda, " such perfect peace in Britain that whereso- 
ever the kingdom of Eadwine extended, a woman with her 
new-born babe might walk throughout the island from sea 
to sea without receiving any harm." But in 632, having 
roused against him Penda, king of Mercia and champion of 
the old pagan faith, Eadwine was killed in the battle of 
Heathfield in Yorkshire. Paullinus and Ethelberga returned 
to Kent. 

This loss to Christianity in the north was balanced by 
gains in the south. Three years afterward the pope sent 
Birinus to Wessex to work among the Gewissi, or West 
Saxons. As a result the king of the West Saxons was 
baptized together with his people, and the city of Dorchester 
was given to Birinus as a see. 



615] 



CELTIC MISSIONARIES. 



11 



11. The Celtic Church and its Missionaries: in lona, Northum- 
bria and Mercia. — Owing to the defeat of Eadwine, the Roman 
missionaries for the time being had to confine their work to 
the south; but in the north a new influence was to make 
itself felt. During the Eoman occupation, Christianity had 
been introduced among the Brythonic Celts, and early in 
the fifth century appears to have been carried from Gaul by 
St. Patrick to the Gaelic Celts in Ireland. In the years that 




loNA Cathedral. 
The cathedral in the background to the right dates from the thir- 
teenth century. St. Orans chapel in the middle distance is much 
older. In the foreground are the tombs of kings of Scotland. 

followed, the Scots, who inhabited the northern part of that 
island, became the most zealous advocates of the Christian 
faith, and not content with work at home, sought other fields 
of labor. St. Columban (died 615) worked in Gaul among the 
Franks;* another and more famous missionary, St. Columba, 
sometimes called the father of the Scottish nation, went from 



1 " Life of St. Columban," by the monk Jonas. Translations and Reprints^ 

Vol. II, No. 7. 



12 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [616 

northern Ireland in 563 to the island of Hii or lona and began 
his work in southwestern Scotland. From lona, where he 
established a monastery, as a centre, the Celtic monks carried 
Christianity to their kinsmen, the Picts, and founded the 
Christian church of Scotland. 

After the overthrow of Eadwine, King Penda extended 
his power over the north and the south Humbrians, the 
Middle Anglians, and the Lindissi, thus making Mercia one 
of the leading tribal kingdoms in the land. But his rule in 
the west was not to continue long. Oswald, a prince of 
the Bernician house, who had been converted to Christianity 
by the Celtic monks, returned to Bernicia in 633, and with 
a small army, fighting under a Christian banner, defeated 
Penda's Welsh ally, Cadwalla, and drove Mercians and Welsh 
out of Bernicia and Deira. He then sent to lona for a mis- 
sionary preacher and gave to the saintly Aidan, who came, 
the island of Lindisfarne. Many other monks came into 
Northumbria and began- the task of converting the people. 
Simple, humble, devoted to their work, they went out into the 
country places, carrying comfort into the homes of the North- 
umbrians of Bernicia and Deira, and preaching the simple 
doctrine of humility and charity. 

But as Penda was still powerful, the struggle between 
Mercia and Northumbria continued for nine years, and though 
Oswald fell in 642, his work was taken up^by his brother Oswiu, 
who threw the weight of his influence on the side of Chris- 
tianity. He defeated Penda in 655 at Winwasd, near Leeds, in 
the last great battle between paganism and the creed of Christ, 
and became in consequence the most powerful king in England. 
His authority extended from the Forth and the Clyde through 
central England to The Wash. In his overlordship of subject 
kings and peoples he was the strongest king that England 
had yet seen. For nine years, under Oswiu's protection, Aidan 
and his missionaries labored and completed the conversion 
of the Middle Anglians and Mercians as well as of the 
Northumbrians. 



CONFLICT OF ROMAN AND IONIAN MISSIONARIES. 13 



12. Conflict between the Roman and Ionian Missionaries. — 

Thus in the south the conversion of the English had been 
effected by the missionaries from Rome ; in the middle and 
north by those from lona. The former derived their authority 
from the bishop of Eome, the 
pope ; the latter from Columba, 
the bishop of lona. Both 
were members of Christian 
churches, differing from each 
other in certain matters of 
ritual, such as the way of 
calculating Easter and the 
shaving of the head in the 
tonsure. These matters, slight 
as they seem, were of sufficient 
importance to prevent the Cel- 
tic church from cooperating 
with the Eoman, even though 
as early as the days of Augus- 
tine conferences had been held 
on the subject. 

In reality, however, there 
existed between the two 
churches differences of far 
greater moment than those 
which concerned Easter and 
the tonsure. The Roman mis- 
sionaries were fewer in num- 
ber, but more powerful because 
they had behind them the 
growing church of the Conti- 
nent ; the Ionian missionaries 

were more numerous and had made their influence felt over a 
greater extent of territory, but because of their isolation were 
less powerful. The Roman missionaries had sought to con- 
vert kings and others politically influential ; the Ionian, to con- 




Cbltic Cross at Iona. 

This cross stands near the road 
leading from tlie landing-place 
to the ruins of the cathedral. 



14 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [664 

vert the people ; and while the former had used outward cere- 
mony and display, the latter had preached the word of God 
humbly, seeking to influence by precept and example. Again, 
and most important of all, the representatives of the Roman 
church had much more advanced ideas of the way in which 
the church should be united under one head and made subject 
to a single authority than had the Ionian representatives who, 
with very rudimentary ideas of organization, had built up 
separate churches in each tribe with scarcely more unity than 
the tribes themselves had. Between these two systems, the 
Eoman with its centre at Canterbury, the Ionian with York as 
its most influential city, there was bound to come a conflict. 
This conflict was settled at the synod of Whitby. 

13. The Synod of Whitby. — By 664, controversies between 
the two churches regarding the keeping of Easter and other rules 
of ecclesiastical life had become so frequent that Oswiu called a 
synod in the monastery of Whitby. After elaborate arguments 
had been presented by Wilfrid for the E-oman party and Colman 
for the Ionian, Oswiu turned to Colman and said, " Is it true that 
Peter has received the keys of Heaven, as Wilfrid says ? " Col- 
man answered, " It is true, king." Then said Oswiu, " Can 
you show any such power given to your Columba?" "None." 
Then said the king, " Peter is the doorkeeper, and him I will 
not contradict, lest w^hen I come to the gates of the kingdom of 
Heaven there should be none to open them, he being my ad- 
versary who is proven to have the keys." Thus a momentous 
decision was made by thB king and assented to by his councillors. 
The English church became henceforth a part of the great Con- 
tinental church, of which the bishop of Rome was rapidly be- 
coming the recognized head, or pope ; and it was destined to 
enjoy not only all the advantages that came from contact with 
the more advanced civilization of the Continent, but also all 
the benefits that a more highly organized church system could 
confer. The Ionian clergy, with Colman at their head, left 
Northumbria to continue in Strathclyde and Pictland the work 
of the Ionian church, which from this time forward became 



680] ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 15 

only of local importance. On the other hand, the Eoman 
system, before a century had passed, was destined to become 
dominant in England as far north as the region about Edinburgh, 
and to aid greatly in furthering the national unity both of 
England and of Scotland. 

14. Organization of the Church : Theodore of Tarsus. — As yet, 
however, the church in England had little organization or 
unity. Thus far each missionary and bishop had worked more 
or less by himself and in his own way. Everywhere there was 
need of some leader who should bind together the churches of 
the several kingdoms into a common whole. Such a man was 
found in Theodore of Tarsus, who in 669 was sent by the 
pope from Eome to Britain. There he remained for twenty- 
three years. "This was the first archbishop whom all the 
English church obeyed," says Bseda; and under him disci- 
pline was improved and many instances of faulty management 
were corrected. He introduced the system, already in use on 
the Continent, of doing penance for crimes committed. In the 
old days if one man killed another, he was liable to be killed 
himself by the relatives of the murdered man ; or else he made 
payment in money or cattle for the injury committed. Such 
payment was called wergeld (p. 47). The church went further, 
and said that a crime was a wrong done not only to the family 
or the tribe, but to God also, and was to be paid for not only bj 
money, but by some act of penance, such as fasting, repeating 
prayers, going on a pilgrimage, or the like. This added very 
much to the power of the clergy over the people. 

Theodore convoked synods of bishops, one at Hertford in 
673^ and another at Heathfield in 680,^ at which rules were 
laid down, to be obeyed by all the clergy. He increased the 
number of dioceses, of which there had formerly been but 
seven, and made the bishops more responsible than before for 
the management of them. He encouraged the clergy to study, 
to take good care of their parishes, and to enforce the law and 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. V. 2 q^q and Hardy, No. VI. 



16 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [600-750 

discipline of the great cliurcli of which they were a part. The 
unity thus effected in the church prepared the way for unity 
among the different peoples and made easier the formation of 
an English nation. 

15. Influence of the Church in England. — The blossoming 
time of the English church was from 600 to 750. While the 
tribal peoples in the petty kingdoms were warring against one 
another, the church stood as the one great uniting force seek- 
ing to place the peoples on a common footing as brethren in 
Christ. While the mass of the English, often only half civil- 
ized, clung to many forms of their pagan life, the church 
slowly and patiently sought to teach them practices that were 
more humane and methods of life that were more refined, and 
so became a factor in civilization. 

In the monasteries it provided peaceful centres where learn- 
ing, art, agriculture, and the sciences were encouraged, and 
where refuge was provided for those who wished to withdraw 
from the confusion of the world about them. The first monas- 
tery was established at Canterbury by King J^thelbirht ; others 
were founded by pious kings and nobles. By the middle of 
the eighth century, a score or more of monasteries possessing 
lands and rights over lands, conveyed in written charters, 
existed in England. In worship and discipline, following the 
rules ^ laid down by Benedict of Nursia two centuries before, the 
monks maintained religious services, encouraged learning, and 
trained men in the practices of humility, charity, and obedience. 

The monks also cleared the forests, drained the marshes, 
built roads and bridges, and in other ways improved the great 
stretches of land granted to them. In the cultivation of these 
lands they borrowed Roman customs from the great ecclesias- 
tical estates of the Continent, and often forced the free culti- 
vators upon the lands they controlled to render payments and 
perform labor that was servile in character.^ Occasionally 



1 For the Benedictine Rule, see Henderson, Documents, p. 274. 

2 For example, see the services quoted by Kendall, No. 9. 



750] MERCIA UNDER OEFA — WESSEX UNDER ECGBERT. 17 

they erected buildings of stone, in which they put glass win- 
dows, bells, and other ornaments. They obtained manuscripts 
which they copied and illustrated, and imported workmen who 
made glass vessels and iron utensils. In general they brought 
Eoman art, architecture, literature, and ideas to England. 
Thus upon the lands around the churches and monasteries 
arose a more advanced civilization than was to be found 
elsewhere in England. Because the records written down by 
the clergy are almost the only sources of our information, 
there is danger of ascribing to the people of other parts of 
England conditions of life that existed only on the ecclesiasti- 
cal lands. 

The men trained in the monasteries spread widely the inliu- 
ence of the English church. From the monastery of York 
went Wilfrith, and afterward from Kipon went Willibrord and 
twelve monks, to convert the Frisians. From Nutsell went the 
great Winfrith, better known as Boniface, who erected an 
archbishopric at Mainz and died a martyr among the Fri- 
sians in 755. From other monasteries went the brothers 
Hewald to labor among the Old Saxons, and Swidbert to labor 
among the Bructeri. The monasteries trained scholars as 
well as missionaries, men who had been inspired by Theodore 
of Tarsus to seek learning. By them schools were established, 
books gathered together, and works hitherto unknown made 
accessible to both clergy and laity. The most famous schools 
were at Jarrow and York in England itself. Among the 
learned men were Bishop Aldhelm, Bseda, the monk of Jarrow, 
to whose history of the English church we owe the greater part 
of our knowledge of the early history of England, and Alcuin, 
librarian of the school at York, who in 782 went to Aix-la- 
Chapelle and became the teacher of Charles the Great and 
the head of the palace school.^ 

16. Supremacy of Mercia under Off a; and of Wessex under 
Ecgbert. — While the church was thus rising into prominence, 

1 Colby, No. 7. 



18 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [685-835 

the state was composed of scattered and disunited tribal king- 
doms. Under Oswiu, who died in 671, and his son Ecgfrith, 
JSTorthumbria remained the most powerful kingdom until 685, 
when Ecgfrith was defeated and slain in a battle with the king 
of the Picts at Dunnichen in Forfarshire. From that time 
Northumbria began to lose her ancient prestige, and other 
kingdoms rose to importance. Mercia, first under ^thelbald 
(716-755) and afterward under Offa (758-796), came to the 
front, and under the latter extended its power to the Thames 
and gained lordship over the East Anglians, East Saxons, and 
Kentishmen.^ In the west Offa's authority was recognized by 
the Welsh, and a dike or rampart that was built from Chester 
to the mouth of the Wye determined the boundary between 
the Mercians and the Celts. But at this time the greatness 
of a kingdom depended on the personal prowess of the king. 
With the death of Offa in 796 the importance of Mercia passed 
away, and Wessex rose to power under Ecgbert, a West Saxon 
prince who had lived for some years at the court of Charles 
the Great and had there learned to conquer and to rule. Re- 
turning to England in 800, Ecgbert at once began his career of 
conquest. During the thirty-seven years of his reign he sub- 
jugated first the Kentishmen, then the South Saxons, East 
Saxons, and Surreymen ; in 823 he overthrew his Mercian rival 
in a mighty battle at Ellendune near Wilton ; and finally he 
received the submission of the East Anglians and south Hum- 
brians, and of the Welsh of Cornwall, who were defeated in 
835 at Hengestun. Thus Ecgbert would seem to have been the 
first king of all the English peoples and over-lord of many of 
the Celts ; but this was not strictly true. His supremacy dif- 
fered in no way from that of ^thelbirht, Eadwine, Oswiu, and 
Offa, except in its completeness. Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, 
and Wessex, each in turn, had controlled the lesser king- 
doms as long as each had possessed a man strong enough to 
maintain his lordship; and the supremacy of each kingdom 

1 For a treaty between Offa and Charles the Great, see Kendall, No. 5. 



REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER I. 19 

was bound to disappear as soon as a weaker man should succeed 
to the kingdom or a stronger man should arise elsewhere. 

The period from 450 through Ecgbert's reign was one in which 
tribal conditions were dominant. The great divisions into West 
Saxons, East Anglians, Mercians, and the like were essentially 
tribal in character, and even some of the lesser tribes were des- 
tined to retain their identity for more than a century longer.^ 
Not until the days of the great West Saxon king Eadgar can 
we begin to speak of a common England, a single kingdom, 
a national king. Great events were to take place first. When 
a line of powerful kings had arisen in Wessex, when a more 
stable government with fixed institutions had been established, 
and when the kings of Wessex had acted in combination with 
the church, which had already set the example of a higher 
system of organization, then, and then only, was political unity 
possible. But before this could be accomplished the people 
of England had to suffer miseries due to an invasion from 
without. The attacks of the Danes taught the Anglo-Saxons, 
as far as they ever learned the lesson, the need of united 
action. 

References for Chapter I. — An excellent account of the physical 
geography of the British Isles may be found in Herbertson and Howarth\s 
The Oxford Survey of the British Empire (1914), Vol. I, Chap. I, with 
maps, plans, and photographs. The economic importance of these par- 
ticulars is well stated in Cunningham and McArthur's Outlines of English 
Industrial History (5th ed. 1910), Chap. II. The racial characteristics 
of the prehistoric peoples, of the Celts, and of the Saxons are admirably 
treated, with maps and illustrations, by Ripley, Races of Europe (1897), 
Vol. I, Chap. XII. 

Authoritative accounts of Pre-Roman Britain, Roman Britain, and 
Anglo-Saxon Britain are given by Haverfield and Chadwick in the En- 
cydopcBdia Britannica (11th ed. 1910-1911), Vol. IV, pp. 583-595. Social 
England, Vol. I, Chap. I, lays stress upon the social and religious life of 
the Celts and gives an excellent description of Roman remains, but the 



1 We read of the South Anglians till 742 ; of the Surreymen till the death 
of yEthelwulf (858) ; of the Gyrvians till 966 ; and of the Hwiccas till 969. 



20 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. 

best descriptions of Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon remains, for the 
regions covered, will be found in the various volumes of the Victoria 
History of the Counties of England (still in process of publication). 
Good single histories are Maclear, The Celts, Rhys, Celtic Britain (valu- 
able maps, new ed. 1904) and Celtic Heathendom (1886), Ward's Roman 
Era in Britain (1911), and Haverfield's The Eomanization of Roman 
Britain (3d ed. 1915). For the Celts in Ireland and Scotland and the 
Romans in Scotland see Hume Brown, History of Scotland (1900), Vol. 
I, Chaps. I, II. 

On the origin of the Anglo-Saxons, we have Chadwick's The Origins 
of the English Nation (1907), which presents conclusions based on 
philology, archaeology, and folk-lore. A short account of Anglo-Saxon 
conquest and history is given in Grant Allen's Anglo-Saxon Britain 
(1881), which deals chiefly with religious and political events to 975 and 
contains good chapters on language and literature ; but the most note- 
worthy volume is Green's Making of England (1882, reprinted in two 
volumes, 1897), which carries the subject to 829. This history, though 
at times imaginative and in parts inaccurate, has never been surpassed 
in interest or value for the general reader. Serial volumes are by Hodg- 
kin in A Political History of England (Hunt and Poole ed.), Vol. I, 
Oman in A History of England (Oman ed.). Vol. I, and Hunt in A 
History of the English Church (Stephens ed.). Vol. I. Nothing can 
quite take the place of Baeda's Ecclesiastical History to 731 (Bohn 
Library) and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (in the same volume). A good 
work on the history of the Celtic Church is Dowden's The Celtic Church 
in Scotland (1894), and the best life of St. Patrick, who evangelized 
Ireland, is by Bury (1905). 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE DANES AND THE RISE OF WESSEX. 

17. The Coming of the Danes. — The people who invaded 
England in the eighth and ninth centuries were hardy hunters 
and fishermen, neighbors and cousins of the Anglo-Saxons, 
living along the coast of Denmark and Scandinavia. They 
were fierce sea-robbers, barbarians in government and manner 
of life, whose object was plunder and conquest. Bred of a 
venturesome spirit in the midst of their fiords, — those retreats 
which gave them the name of Vikings, or fiord-dwellers, — 
they were always ready to start on freebooting expeditions 
toward the shores which lay nearest or which they could reach 
by sailing westward. Their methods of navigation were sim- 
ple : they followed the coast, or, if compelled to push out of 
sight of land, they studied the stars, or let loose a raven and 
followed his course to land. Under single leaders, chosen for 
courage and ability, they appeared in their vessels, advancing 
without warning up the rivers, sacking cities, plundering fields, 
and destroying monasteries. They penetrated the Seine to 
Paris, the Loire to Tours, the Guadalquiver to Seville. Charles 
the Great defeated them in Frisia; Charles the Fat bought 
them off before Paris ; the Moors in Spain fled in dismay before 
them, thinking them wizards. These were the invaders who 
threatened to conquer the Anglo-Saxons as effectually as four 
centuries before the Anglo-Saxons had conquered the Celts. 

Though the Northmen or Danes first appeared in 787^ 
off Wessex at Wareham, the first serious consequences of 
their attacks were felt in the north. In 793 the marauders 



1 Lee, p. 96. 
21 



22 THE DANES. [866 

attacked Northumbria and destroyed the monastery of Lindis- 
f arne ; they then pushed on toward the west, occupied Ireland 
in 795, and in 802 burned the buildings at lona. By these 
acts they completed the crippling of Northumbria, broke up the 
unity of the Scots in Ireland and southwestern Scotland, and 
compelled the king of the Picts to transfer the seat of the Celtic 
church from lona to Dunkeld. In the meantime the invasion 
of the centre and south was continued : in 794 the Northmen 
sacked Wearmouth, and from that time forward their attacks 
were frequent and persistent. At first their object was plun- 
der, and for half a century they burned and despoiled, going 
away, however, as rapidly as they came. But in 851 we find 
the ominous record, " This year the heathen men remained over 
winter at Thanet." ^ It is evident that the era of settlement 
had begun, and that land as well as plunder was the object. 
Ecgbert fought against them as robbers, but his sons and 
grandsons fought against them as conquerors and permanent 
settlers. The Anglo-Saxons, divided among themselves, fight- 
ing on foot, with a poorly equipped army composed only of 
the freemen of their tribes, were unable to resist the Danish 
advance. In Kent and Wessex the Danes had already ob- 
tained a footing, and so numerous had they become that in 
866, when iEthelred was king of the West Saxons, " a great 
heathen army," as the Chronicle calls it, "took up its head- 
quarters among the East Angles, and there was provided with 
horses; and then the East Angles made peace." Thus anew 
phase of the struggle began : the Danes were no longer con- 
tent to be mere settlers in the land ; they wished to be con- 
querors also. 

18. The Danish ** Army." — The Viking host was not a 
national body in the sense that it represented a single people 
coming from a single kingdom. It was rather a collection of 
war-bands living on the country it invaded. Each band was 
under its own individual chieftain, and the whole " army " was 

1 Cf . Lee, p. 96. 



880] THE DANISH "ARMY." 23 

divided into two groups, at the head of one of which were 
Danish kings, at the head of the other, Danish jarls. The inva- 
sion was in fact but the last phase of the old order of things ; 
that is, the last phase of the movement known as the " Wan- 
dering of the Nations," of which the migration of the Anglo- 
Saxons themselves had been but a part. The invasion was the 
work of many warrior-leaders seeking adventure, booty, and 
homes. We read of Inghwar and his brothers and successors, 
Halfdene and Ubba; of Bagseg and his successor Guthrum. 
They began the conquest, attacking first one part and then 
another, sometimes destroying the inhabitants, sometimes 
making peace with them, sacking towns, seizing lands and par- 
celling them oat among their followers in Danish fashion. In 
consequence, Danish names and customs are to be found 
throughout half of England, while Danish blood flows in the 
veins of those who inhabit the region once known as the Dane- 
law, where the Danes made permanent settlements. 

Passing out of East Anglia, part of the " army " under Ingh- 
war and Ubba invaded Northumbria and captured York in 867. 
The next year it entered Mercia, where King Burhred, despite 
help furnished by the West Saxons, was forced to conclude a 
peace. Having reduced Mercia, the bulk of the "army" re- 
turned to York, and in 870 under the same leaders went back 
to East Anglia, where in cold blood they slew King Eadmund 
and burned the abbey of Peterborough. Afterward the mar- 
tyred king was revered as a saint, his body translated to a 
monastery in Suffolk, and the place of his burial called the 
abbey of Bury St. Edmunds. Thus Northumbria, Mercia, and 
East Anglia passed under the yoke of the Danes, who, in the 
following years and under other leaders, became settlers upon 
the lands they had conquered. Under Halfdene the lands of 
the Northumbrians were distributed in 876 ; in 877 the Mercian 
lands were divided ; and in 880 a Danish band took possession 
of East Anglia and parcelled out the soil. A new people, kin- 
dred of the old, had become timers and ploughers of the lands 
it had conquered. 



24 THE DANES. [871 

19. The Resistance of Wessex. — In the centre and the north 
the Danes had succeeded in their conquest. Would they carry 
their efforts further and subjugate the south also? Wessex 
alone among the kingdoms was able to resist; and upon its 
king, ^thelred, and his brother Alfred fell the heavy burden 
of saving the English people from a Danish yoke and England 
from becoming a Daneland. The year 870-871 was critical in 
the history of the struggle, for it was in that year that the 
Danish " army," hurling itself on Wessex, fought stubbornly 
for the victory. In famous battles ^Ethelred and the setheling 
Alfred fought the Danes among the hills and marshes of Berk- 
shire. On December 31, 870, at Englefield, they defeated 
jarl Sidroc and a plundering party. Four days later (January 
4, 871), pushing on to where the Danes were intrenched in 
camp at Reading, they suffered defeat and were obliged to 
withdraw. The Danes advanced to Ashdown, between Wall- 
ingford and Marlborough, and there was fought one of the 
most brilliant battles of the year (January 8). The West 
Saxons slew one king, Bagseg, five jarls, and many thousand 
of the heathen host. It was a great victory, and to it no one 
contributed more than did the young Alfred, who led the 
attack and sustained the brunt of the fighting. 

But the Danes soon took their revenge. Turning southward 
from Ashdown, they attempted to reach the chief West Saxon 
city, Winchester; they were intercepted at Basing and forced 
to fight, but they won the day (January 22). Falling back to 
their camp at Reading, they remained for two months inactive 
or engaged at most only in plundering raids; but in March 
they pushed again into central Wessex. There they engaged 
the West Saxons at Marton,^ and though seeming to have lost 
the day, they remained in the end "masters of the field of 
death " (March 22). In this battle ^thelred received a mortal 
wound, and died a month afterward, April 23. He was suc- 

1 For a critical examination of these Danish movements, see "Alfred's 
Year of Battles," E.H.R. 1886, p. 218; Plummer's Alfred, pp. 92-105. 



871] 



ALFRED THE GREAT AND THE DANES. 



25 



ceeded by his brother Alfred, who had so loyally sustained him 
and upheld the cause of Wessex during these eventful months. 

20. Alfred the Great and the Danes. — Alfred the Great, by 
common repute the noblest of the early English kings, suc- 
ceeded to his inheritance in the midst of war and became king 
of the West Saxons in the hour of their greatest peril. From 
his boyhood he 
had been con- 
sidered by all 
who knew him as 
the most promis- 
ing of .Ethel- 
wulf's sons 5 in 
battle he had 
shown himself re- 
sourceful in com- 
mand and a brave 
fighter on the 
field. He was 
comely in person, 
aristocratic in 
sympathies, and 
superior to all 
the men of his 
time in his love 
of learning and 
desire for the 
improvement of 
his semi-barbar- 
ous people. In 
871, when twenty- 
three years old, he succeeded to the throne of the only kingdom 
in England which possessed any real national life or made any 
pretence to an efficient political organization. 

The first outlook was discouraging. With only a small 
army behind him, King Alfred was unable to make a pro- 




Alfred the Great. 

From G. King's engraving of a painting in Uni- 
versity College, Oxford. It is of course wholly 
imaginary, and is only reproduced here to give 
a seventeenth-century idea of what Alfred looked 
like. No authentic portrait of Alfred exists. 



26 THE DANES. [876 

longed effort to dislodge the Danish army from northern Wes- 
sex. A month after he came to the throne, his fighting force, 
without him, met the Danes at Wilton on the Willy, and 
though victorious for the moment, was defeated in the end. 
Then Alfred sued for peace, and after paying a heavy tribute,^ 
for which he was obliged to tax his people, he obtained a 
respite for a few years. 

The Danes, being bought off, turned aside from Wessex, 
and while Guthrum remained at Cambridge, Half dene com- 
pleted the conquest of Northumbria and settled there in 875- 
876. A year later, Ubba and Guthrum renewed their assault 
on Wessex. They overran the eastern portion of the kingdom, 
captured London and Winchester, and occupied a fortified 
camp at Chippenham. Alfred built a fleet of long ships in 
877 to guard the coast from attack, and twice paid additional 
money to the Danes to withdraw. But the latter did not carry 
out their part of the bargain. Finally, with a little band 
Alfred made his way into Somerset, to an island called 
Athelney, a place situated at the junction of the Tone and the 
Parret and surrounded by marshes and rivers, into which no 
one could enter without boats.^ Here he made a fort and 
laid his plans for victory; and here, in 1693, was found the 
enamelled jewel with its inscription, " Alfred mec heht gewyr- 
can" ("Alfred ordered me to be made"). Gradually, between 
March and May, 878, he gathered the men of Somerset, Wilts, 
and Hampshire about him. At the same time a body of Devon 
men attacked and destroyed a freebooting party under Ubba, 
slew their king, and captured their raven war-flag. Then 
Alfred, secretly meeting his tribesmen at Egbertstone, the 
seat of the shiremot, advanced with them to Edington (^th- 
andune), where he fell upon the whole Danish "army" and 
defeated it with great slaughter. Having driven back the 
Danes to their retreat at Chippenham, he laid siege to the 



1 " An enormous tribute," one of the charters called it. 

2 Lee, p. 97. Compare also Kendall, No. 7. 



885] 



ALFRED AND GUTHRUM'S PEACE. 



27 



place, and by threatening them with starvation, compelled them 
to sue for peace (878).^ 

21. Alfred and Guthrum's Peace. — This time the peace was 
kept. Guthrum, the Danish king, entered into friendly rela- 
tions with Alfred, was baptized with thirty of his followers, 
and during the following years settled down in East Anglia, 




as the peaceful subject of the king. In 885 Alfred occupied 
London, and the next year made a second treaty with Guth- 
rum, dividing the kingdom.^ "This is the peace," says the 
old text, " that King Alfred and King Guthrum made and 
the witan (wise-men) of all the English race and the whole 
body of the Danish people who are in East Anglia." By this 



1 Lee, pp. 96-97; Colby, No. 9. 

2 This treaty has generally been confused with that of Chippenham, 878, as, 
for example, by Lee, pp. 98-99; but inasmuch as the boundary between Wes- 
sex and the Danelaw left London in Alfred's hands, the terms of that boundary 
must have been arranged after Alfred's capture of that city in 885. See 
Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Vol. II, p. 99; Alfred, pp. 108-109. 



28 THE DANES. [885 

treaty the boundary between English and Danes is defined as 
extending up the Thames to the Lea, along the Lea to its 
source, thence to Bedford, thence up the Ouse to Watling 
Street, and thence probably to the Severn and the Welsh 
frontier. On one side of this line, which divided England 
into two parts, were the Danes in East Anglia, the Danes in 
the Five Boroughs, Derby, Stamford, Nottingham, Lincoln, 
and Leicester, which had been founded by them in Mercia, and 
the Danes in Northumbria as far as the Tees; on the other 
side were the West Saxons, whose authority extended from 
Cornwall to Kent. The English and the Danes on one side 
obeyed the Dane-law ; the West Saxons, Mercians, Surrey-men, 
South Saxons, and Kentishmen on the other obeyed the West 
Saxon law. 

The consequences of this arrangement were of vast impor- 
tance for England. Alfred had emerged from the struggle 
strengthened rather than weakened, for he now ruled over 
a territory nearly twice as large as that which his brother 
had controlled, and the opportunity was at last offered of erect- 
ing a powerful English kingdom in the south. The growth of 
this kingdom marks the foundation of an English state and an 
English nation. 

22. Effects of the Danish Conquest. — The evil effects of the 
Danish conquest were, in the beginning, everywhere apparent. 
Monasteries had been sacked, towns destroyed, harvests ruined, 
and hundreds of prisoners taken and sold into slavery. Whole 
districts had been devastated, the English had been driven out 
or subjected, the monastic centres of learning and Christian 
influence had practically ceased to exist, and many parts of 
the centre and north had come under pagan control. In the 
region north of the Tees, English rule was still maintained; 
but further north, the Celtic king, Constantin, had been har- 
assed by Norwegians ^ as Alfred had been by Danes. 



1 Norwegians had established themselves in northernmost Scotland and 
in Ireland. Hume Browne, History of Scotland, Vol. I, pp. 33-34. 



871-901] EFFECTS OF THE DANISH CONQUEST. 



29 







MS': 






^g 



iJvg-' 



IM 










o s 
5r! o 



C^ CQ cH 



^ o 

CD <D 

a; 

9^ 2 a^ 



O) o 



^bi:. 






&J0 



a ^ 2 



South of the Thames the 
effects were startling. Al- 
fred says, in his preface 
to the translation of Pope 
Gregory's Pastoral Care : 
" So clean was learning 
fallen away among the 
English that there were 
very few on this side of 
the Humber who knew 
how to render their daily 
prayers in English, or so 
much as translate an epistle 
out of Latin into English. 
I ween that there were not 
so many beyond the Hum- 
ber. They were so few 
that I cannot think of a 
single one south of the 
Thames when I took the 
kingdom." ^ This was the 
condition of learning a 
century and a half after 
the death of Bse^a, and 
but a century after Alcuin 
had become the great liter- 
ary leader at the court of 
Charles the Great. At the 
same time the long- con- 
tinued wars were changing 
the social condition of the 
people. Many who had 
been free possessors of 
their own folklands were 

1 Earle, Anglo-Saxon Litera- 
ture, p. 190. 



30 THE RISE OF WESSEX. [871-901 

compelled to seek the protection of those stronger than them- 
selves and to bow their heads for meat in the evil days. 

On the other hand, the good effects of the Danish conquest 
were many. Indirectly, the conquest was beneficial for Eng- 
land. By forcing political unity upon Wessex, the kingdom 
in which lay the future of England, it prepared the way for 
the unity of all Christian England. Hereafter the Celts in 
Devon and Somerset were to become Englishmen equally with 
the Saxons in Mercia and the Jutes in Kent. Furthermore, 
the Danes brought a fresh supply of Teutonic blood into 
England and strengthened the institutions which the Angles 
and Saxons had already established. In law and language, 
in habits and customs of life, the two peoples had so much in 
common that for their union into one nation only a reasonable 
period of time was now necessary. 

23. Alfred's Work in Wessex. — Until the year 896 King 
Alfred continued his war against the Danes under their last 
great leader, Hsesten.^ But by 881 his military work had been 
largely accomplished, and he was able to turn to matters of 
internal reorganization and reform. 

His first consideration was for the defences of his kingdom. 
Already, in 877, had he commanded long ships to be built for 
the protection of the coast, and with these in 882 and again in 
885 he had defeated and captured ships of the Danes. In 
897 he enlarged the navy by the construction of ships twice 
as large as the others and propelled by sixty oars or more. In 
the army his changes were even more radical. He increased 
the number of thegns, who had been at first attendants on 
the royal household and later had become a territorial nobility, 
and required of them a more regular military service. He 
divided them into three groups, one of which was always to be 
with him as he travelled from one royal estate to another — 
for the king had no fixed court. In this Avay he provided for 

1 Article by Abbott, on " Hasting," in E. H. R., 1898, p. 439. Hsesten and 
his followers brought their wives and children with them and seem to have 
made a deliberate attempt to conquer England. 



871-901] ALFRED'S WORK IN WESSEX. 31 

a permanent body of heavy-armed men. The fyrd, or body of 
foot-soldiers, he divided into two parts, one of which remained 
at home, while the other fought with the king and the thegns. 
He also mounted many of his men on horseback for greater 
rapidity of movement. To others of his people he intrusted 
the erection of fortified camps and the strengthening and de- 
fence of the burgs. It is a noteworthy evidence of the suc- 
cess of these changes that not only was Alfred able to ward 
off the attack of Hsesten, but that for nearly a century after 
this time his successors were almost continuously victorious 
in all conflicts with the Danes. 

Alfred strengthened also the organization of the church, and 
brought it into closer contact with the Continental church of 
which it was a part. During a visit to Eome in 853, when 
but five years old, he seems to have received at the hands of 
Leo IV some special recognition, the exact nature of which 
is not known. ^ Asser and the Chronicle say that the pope 
" hallowed Alfred as king and took him as his bishop's son," 
the latter referring to the act of confirmation. But whether 
the "hallowing" was a consecration as king or an investiture 
as consul of the Eoman Empire is doubtful. Alfred, in after 
years, constantly sent alms and letters to Rome and received 
gifts of books and relics in return. He did what he could for 
the monasteries that had suffered so terribly from the Danish 
attacks. He erected two new monasteries in Wessex, one at 
Atlielney and another at Shaftsbury, the latter of which he 
placed under his own daughter as abbess ; and to each he gave 
an ample endowment. He strengthened neighboring monas- 
teries in Mercia, and gave freely, not only to churches else- 
where in England, but also out of it, in Brittany and Ireland. 
He was constant in his attendance upon worship, and was 
accustomed to pray secretly at night in the churches or at 
the relics of the saints. 

For learning and literature his work is especially famous. He 

1 Hunt, p. 260; Plummer's Alfred, pp. 70-74; Stevenson's Asser, pp. 180-185. 



32 THE RISE OF WESSEX. [871-901 

organized schools both at his court and at the monasteries, de- 
manding the attendance of his own children as well as those 
of the nobility, that they might read Latin and Saxon books 
and learn to write. About him he gathered men of learn- 
ing : Weref rith of Worcester, Plegmund, ^Ethelstan and Were- 
wulf, priests and scholars from Mercia, Grimbald of St. 
Omer's, and John the Old Saxon from the Continent, all of 
whom aided him in his work.^ He read books, and had others 
read to him. For the instruction of the clergy, he trans- 
lated, from the Latin, Gregory's Pastoral Care; and though 
occupied with matters of state and in poor health found time 
to translate and comment upon Boethius, De Consolatione 
PhilosopliicB, and Orosius, History of the World. Either he 
himself or one of his Mercian scholars made a version of 
Baeda's Ecclesiastical History ; and a group of monks, probably 
at Winchester, gave a splendid impetus to Anglo-Saxon prose 
by gathering together the annals kept in the monasteries and 
continuing them in the form of a chronicle. The translation 
of Bseda and the writing of the Chronicle bear witness to 
the growing national spirit that Alfred was stimulating in 
Wessex. 

In law and government the king's efforts were no less success- 
ful. He gathered into one code ^ the laws of the West Saxon 
kingdom, comprising church laws adopted in the synods, those 
of ^thelbirht of Kent, those of his own predecessor, Ine 
of the West Saxons, and those of Offa of Mercia. To these 
he added a few of his own, prefacing the whole with an 
elaborate introduction, composed of the Ten Commandments, 
part of the Law of Moses, a letter of the Apostles from Jeru- 
salem, and some original remarks of his own. This collection 
is of great importance ; for not only is it one of the greatest 
monuments of this prudent and far-sighted king, but it laid 

1 Colby, No. 8. 

2 A scholarly study of this code may be found in the introduction to Turk's 
The Legal Code of Alfred the Great. See also Plummer, Alfred, pp. 121-124. 
For selections from his dooms, see Kendall, No. 6. 



871-901] EXPANSION OF WESSEX. 33 

the foundation for law in Wessex, and upon it were built the 
laws of his successors. 

What he did for government is more difficult to determine ; 
for later generations, impressed with Alfred's greatness, at- 
tributed to him laws that were not his, and political changes 
that he did not effect. We know that he was constantly ex- 
horting his ministers to govern more wisely, and that he him- 
self kept careful watch to see that justice was done throughout 
the kingdom. He made the central government more efficient 
by frequent meetings of his chief advisers, and also controlled 
local affairs by sending chosen persons to see that peace was 
maintained and that the good of his people was considered in 
the smaller districts. 

In general he encouraged hunting and manly pursuits, fos- 
tered the making of articles in gold, and promoted trade and 
commerce. He restored cities and towns, and rebuilt many 
royal villas ; he was in frequent communication with the world 
outside of England ; he exchanged letters and gifts with for- 
eign kings and patriarchs, notably Elias III of Jerusalem, and 
he is said to have sent Sighelm to the shrine of St. Thomas, in 
India. We know that he despatched Othere on a voyage to 
the northeast. All this was accomplished by a man who was 
tormented during his life by a grievous sickness, and who died 
at the early age of fifty-two, October 26, 901 (899 ?)} 

24. Expansion of Wessex. — Alfred was followed by a line 
of noteworthy kings who maintained the dignity of Wessex 
and extended its power, not only over Danish territory, but 

1 The year of Alfred's death is uncertain. Stevenson, after a critical ex- 
amination of the evidence, decides in favor of 899; E. H. R., 1898, p. 71. His 
conclusions had the high approval of Bishop Stubbs. Plummer, however, 
decides in favor of 900; Alfred, pp. 197-198. The perfectness of Alfred's 
character has been heightened unnecessarily by the exaggerated praises of 
many modern writers. Even to the men of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries Alfred was ''England's darling," and he has remained such ever 
since. Nevertheless there is little warrant in what we know of Alfred for 
making him a saint. His works speak for him, and sufficiently indicate his 
greatness. 



34 THE RISE OF WESSEX. [944 

in the regions occupied by the Celts as well. Under Ead- 
ward the Elder (901-924), ^thelstan (924-940), Eadmund (940 
-946), and Eadgar (959-975), the boundaries of Wessex were 
widened by the addition of conquered territory, its laws and 
methods of government carried north of the Thames, and its 
inhabitants and the Danes bound together into a closer union. 

The steps in this process may be briefly traced. From 906 to 
924, under Eadward the Elder, the West Saxon arms were borne 
against East Anglia, which submitted in 921 ; against the kings 
of central Wales, who acknowledged Ead ward's supremacy in 
922 ; and finally against the Five Boroughs, the last of which, 
Nottingham, was captured in 924. Thus central England was 
added to Wessex, and the king's authority was recognized as 
far north as the Humber. The Chronicle tells us, too, that in 
that year Constantin III, the king of the united Picts and 
Scots, Eldred, the king of Bernicia, and Donald, king of the 
Strathclyde Britons, chose Eadward for their father and lord ; 
but this is probably a mediaeval exaggeration, bearing witness 
to the greatness of Eadward's fame as a warrior. 

^thelstan carried the work of his predecessors a step far- 
ther. He warred with the Britons in Wales, annexed Danish 
Northumbria, and when in 937 an alliance of Scots, Danes, 
and Strathclyde Britons was formed against him, won the 
famous battle of Brunanburh. This battle made ^thelstan 
known on the Continent, and is celebrated in one of the finest 
of the Anglo-Saxon songs.^ 

^thelstan died in 940, and his successor, Eadmund, was 
compelled, by a dangerous revolt of the Danes in the Five 
Boroughs, to withdraw for the moment from the north. But 
with this uprising checked he was able in 944 to take up his 
father's work. He drove the Danish king from Northumbria 



1 *' The Song of the Fight of Brunanburh," Plummer, Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle, Vol. II; Ten Brink, Early English Literature, pp. 91-92; and 
Tennyson's modern version of the poem. Also Kendall, No. 8. Ramsey, 
Foundations of England, would locate the site of the battle at Bourne, in 
Lincolnshire; Plummer prefers a western location. 



J 



ANGLO-SAXON KINGS. 







802-839 

JEthelwulf 

839-858 

1 






Ethebald . 
858-860 


1 
iEthelberht u 

860-866 

Eadward 
901- 


Ethelred I Alfred 
866-871 871-901 (899 ?) 






the Elder 
-924 


1 
^thelflsed = 

Lady of the 

Mercians 


: ethelred 
Ealdorman of 
the Mercians 


jEthelstan 
924-940 


Eadmund I 

940-946 

1 


Eadred 
946-955 





Eadwig 
955-959 



Eadgar 
959-975 



Eadward 11 Ethelred II = ^Ifiaed 
the Martyr the Redeless = Emma of = 
975-979 979-1016 I Normandy 



Eadmund II Goda = 
Ironside Eustace 

1016 of Boulogne 

I 



Sweyn 

Cnut 
1016-1035 
A 

r 



Eadward Harold 

the Confessor 1037-1040 
1042-1066 



Harthacnut 
1040-1042 



Eadmund 



Eadward 
the ^theling 
I 



Eadgar 
the ^theling 



Margaret = Malcolm III 
I of Scotland 
Matilda 
(Edyth) 



[36] 



36 THE RISE OF WESSEX. [959 

and compelled him to flee to Ireland; he turned westward, 
marched into Strathclyde, through which the Danes from 
Ireland had been accustomed to bring assistance to the Danes 
of Northumbrian and harried the land. Then he delivered 
a portion of it — modern Cumberland — to Malcolm I, nephew 
and successor of Constantin who had aided hfm at Brunan- 
burh, to be held by Malcolm as a " fellow-worker." 

Eadred, Eadmund's successor, renewed the compact, but, as 
was to be expected, it was not kept by turbulent Britons and 
Scots constantly at war among themselves and living on a 
northern frontier so far away from Wessex. The existence 
of such a compact testifies to the fact that the power of Wes- 
sex had been carried far to the north and that its king was 
recognized in some way as the superior of the tribal kings of 
the Scots and Britons. By the expansion of Wessex a national 
England was gradually coming into existence. 

25. Eadgar. — Under Eadgar, who reigned from 959 to 975, 
England of the Anglo-Saxon period rose to its highest point of 
political power. This was due, not to Eadgar alone, but in no 
small part to the statesmanlike genius of Archbishop Dunstan, 
who, with Bishop Ethelwold, was the chief adviser of the 
king. To these three men working in harmony with each 
other must be attributed the most important measures which 
have made Eadgar's reign prominent in English history. For 
the first time the kingdom was at peace. '' Eadgar loved 
God's law and bettered the peace of the folk beyond any king 
who had gone before him." This he accomplished in many 
ways: he guarded the kingdom against invasion, by himself 
invading Wales and Strathclyde to check rebellious move- 
ments ; he enlarged the fleet with which he coasted around the 
island to ward off attacks from the Danes, notably those of Ire- 
land ; and he preserved friendly relations with the rulers of the 
Celts of the north and northwest. " And all the kings of this 
island," says Aelfric, "of Cumbrians and Scots, eight kings, 
came to Eadgar once upon a time in one day, and they all 
bowed to Eadgar's government." A later chronicler, fond of 



975] EADGAR. 37 

exaggeration, tells us that eight kings rowed King Eadgar on 
the river Dee, while the latter steered with a golden rudder. 
The tale shows the power of Eadgar's name. 

Eadgar strengthened the internal government of his kingdom. 
His predecessors had already recognized the need of improv- 
ing its organization ; for J^thelstan had placed Essex and East 
Anglia under the control of ealdormen, who ruled there for 
the king, and Eadwig had increased the ealdormanries, as they 
were called, by adding Northumbria and Mercia to Essex and 
East Anglia. But Eadgar, knowing the difficulty of governing 
so large a region, in days when communication was slow, divided 
Northumbria into two ealdormanries and Wessex into three. 
This system worked well with Eadgar, who was a strong king, 
but there was no certainty that it would work well under his 
successors if any of them proved a weak man. The ealdormen 
were selected from among the most influential men of each 
region, were indeed often themselves sub-kings, and there was 
always danger that they would grow more important than the 
king himself, and would usurp his authority there. But Ead- 
gar controlled his ealdormen. "Twice a year, summer and 
winter, he rode through every shire inquiring into the judg- 
ments of his ealdormen, and showing himself a powerful 
avenger in the name of justice." 

Eadgar stirred up the people in their towns and villages by 
increasing the usefulness of local institutions. He required 
that the court of the hundred should meet regularly once a 
month, that of the shire once every six months, and that of the 
borough once every four months.^ He increased the importance 
of the hundred by making it responsible for the preservation 
of the peace, requiring it to look after thieves, and to have 
twelve witnesses in whose presence cattle were to be bought.^ 
Large towns he ordered to have thirty-three such witnesses. 

1 The division of England into shires and hundreds will be discussed in the 
chapter on Anglo-Saxon institutions. The system of mot or courts will also 
be explained there. 

2 Lee, pp. 94-95. 



38 THE RISE OF WESSEX. [975 

These laws were intended to check murder and robbery, which 
with perjury were the most frequent offences of these days. 
Eadgar also made money uniform throughout the kingdom, and 
established one standard for weights and measures. He sought 
to conciliate the Danes and to transform them into loyal sub- 
jects by allowing them to be tried by their own laws, by ap- 
pointing many of them ealdormen, and then by summoning 
these ealdormen to sit with his wise-men. Though this policy 
made the native English jealous, and led to many complaints 
at the time, it proved, as the future showed, an eminently 
wise one. 

26. Dunstan's Reforms. — Dunstan had helped the king in 
all his political reforms, but was himself even more interested 
in the condition of the church and the clergy. Since the 
founding of the Benedictine monasteries in England, in the 
years from 600 to 750, the spiritual life of the monks, not only 
in England but on the Continent also, had deteriorated, and in 
the tenth century a movement had begun at the monastery of 
Cluny in Burgundy for the improvement of the clergy through- 
out the church.^ This Cluniac revival spread to England, where 
Dunstan and Oswald, bishop of Worcester, were eager to take 
up the new movement. 

What they tried to do was this : they wished to bring the 
church in England into closer touch with the church on the Con- 
tinent ; to increase the number of monasteries in England, and 
to have them all managed alike under the reformed Benedictine 
rule of Cluny; to bring in books of higher scholarship and 
deeper spiritual character, and so arouse the English monks 
to a greater interest in literary and spiritual things ; lastly, to 
stop the marriage of the clergy, and to prevent the archbishops, 
bishops, and abbots from taking prominent part in political 
affairs and so neglecting their religious duties. 

Their efforts, however, were only partly successful. Dunstan 
was able to increase the number of monasteries, both in and out 

1 Henderson, Documents, p. 329. 



i 

I 



988] DUNSTAN'S REFORMS. 39 

of Wessex, to enlarge the duties of the regular clergy (the 
monks) by substituting them in many instances for the secular 
clergy (the priests), and to complete the ecclesiastical unity of 
England by raising Oswald to be archbishop of York. But his 
reforms were premature, and roused great opposition. With 
the death of Eadgar in 975 he lost his best ally, and though 
he lived thirteen years longer, he made but few attempts to 
complete what he had begun. When he died in 988, Anglo- 
Saxon England had already entered on a period marked by 
disaster and decay. 



References for Chapter II. — Green's Conquest of England (1883, 
reprinted in two volumes, 1899) covers tliis period. Chapter XII of 
Keary's Vikings in Western Christendom (1891), pp. 350-354, bears on 
the subject for the years 789 to 888. Freeman's Norman Conquest 
(1865), Vol. I, is a standard authority. PauH's Life of Alfred (1853) 
was for a long time the most acceptable work on the great king, but 
has now been largely superseded by Plummer's Life and Times of 
Alfred the Great (1902) and Lees' Alfred the Great (1915). The notes 
to Plummer's edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle^ 2 vols. (1892, 
1899) and Stevenson's edition of Asser (1904) are of great value. For 
Dunstan, the life in the Dictionary of National Biography by Hunt 
should be read in connection with the same writer's account in the first 
volume of A History of the English Church. For the effects of the 
Danish Conquest see Social England, Vol. I, p. 140, Cunningham's 
Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. I, pp. 79-92, and the 
eariier chapters of Larson's Canute the Great (1912). The serial volumes 
referred to under Chapter I are all important here. 



CHAPTER III. 

ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. 

27. Anglo-Saxon methods of life and government had by the 

close of Eadgar's reign become so well established that we are 
able to describe them with a fair degree of accuracy. The 
tribal organization already discussed was the starting-point in 
the development of the later institutions, but great changes had 
already taken place. The king of the tribe had become the 
king of all England ; the council of wise-men had risen steadily 
in importance as the royal power had increased ; thegns, in the 
old time only personal attendants on the king, had become 
great territorial lords, taking the place of the old earls and 
gesithas; the old tribal kingdoms, having ceased to be the 
seats of separate clans, had become administrative districts 
or shires in the larger kingdoms; the sub-kings had often 
become ealdormen of the district, and the folkmot of the tribe 
had become the court of the shire; within the shire another 
division called the hundred had been growing more and more 
prominent; finally, the old land system and the old tribal 
customs had been modified, largely through the influence 
of the church. 

28. The King. — Most important of all these changes was 
the growth in the power of the king. In origin only the chief 
of a conquering war-band, the king had now become the perma- 
nent head of a great and settled people. He was elected 
by his great men sitting in council, but always from a 
particular family, whose hereditary right to furnish kings for 
the tribe was based on descent from the gods. As early as the 

40 



975] THE KING. 41 

time of Alfred, however, consecration by the church was looked 
upon as adding to the sanctity of the royal title and person.* 

The king's powers were far from absolute, and his special 
rights, though constantly increasing, were not at this time very 
clearly defined. He was first and foremost a warrior, the head 
of the people in arms, and conquest had been up to this time 
one of the most important aspects of Anglo-Saxon life. As a 
law-maker, whether in writing down the old laws or in making 
new ones, he generally acted with his chief advisers, — arch- 
bishops and bishops, thegns and other prominent men, com- 
posing the witan. Of these laws, written in Anglo-Saxon, 
many collections still exist. As judge, the king held no court 
and had little to do with the execution of justice, though he 
sometimes acted as an arbiter. Two kings at least, Alfred^ 
and Eadgar, seem to have interfered when a freeman could not 
obtain justice in a lower court. 

As time went on, however, the king came to be considered 
the source of justice, and crimes or breaches of the peace came 
to be looked upon especially as an offence against him. This 
idea of the peace as the king's peace instead of the folk's 
peace, though it did not make the king a judge any more than 
he had been before, increased men's respect for him, and caused 
the laws that he issued to be r oeyed more readily. As head of 
his people and guardian of the peace, he took portions of all 
fines imposed by the courts on all persons who deserted the 
army or were guilty of contempt of court or other petty offences. 
He also received portions of all property forfeited for treason, 
many tolls from markets, fairs, and other trading privileges, 
as well as dues for the use of harbors and navigable rivers. 
Prom these revenues, supplemented by certain yearly supplies 



1 This would be true whether Alfred was " hallowed " as prospective king 
of the West Saxons or only as a sub-king of Kent, as Plummer is inclined 
to think. It may be noticed that as early as 690 Ine was king "by God's 
grace." 

2 Asser gives a very pleasing picture of Alfred as fountain of justice. See 
Plummer, Alfred, pp. 124-125. 



42 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [975 

of food sent to Mm by his people,^ and from the proceeds of 
the large holdings of land that he possessed in different parts 
of his kingdom, the king was expected to live. But in spite 
of all these rights and privileges the Anglo-Saxon king can 
hardly be called a ruler in the later sense of the word. He 
had no direct control over local affairs, which were largely 
regulated either by local custom or by the courts of the hun- 
dred and the shire. 

29. The Witan. — There is no evidence to show that the 
king continued to gather his people about him, as he had done 
in the earliest days. The last possible trace of this custom 
is in the " great gathering of God's servants," who with the 
witan sanctioned the adoption of Ine's laws. Only the wise- 
men, the witan, continued to meet with the king. This body 
was made up of those only whom the king desired to summon, 
— members of the royal family and others close to the king, 
high officials in the church, prominent thegns, ealdormen, and 
others whom the king appointed to administer the kingdom. 
These men met whenever the king had need of them, usually 
three or four times a year. At these meetings the king and 
witan issued the laws, as we know from the prefaces to the 
codes of Ine and others ; but that neither king nor witan had 
much power to enforce these laws is evident from the repe- 
tition of the same law in the codes of several kings. 

Other powers, nowhere defined in Anglo-Saxon literature, 
may be inferred from the few instances of their use. There 
are many instances to show that the witan could elect the 
king, but few to show that they could depose him. Alfred 
and his witan made peace with Guthrum ; but no mention is 
made of the witan, when, a few years later, Eadward made 
a similar peace. A little later, in the tenth century, we find 
^thelred and the witan entering into a peace with Olaf and 
the Danish army ; levying one tax for the purpose of buying 

1 For example, Westbury sent yearly to the royal vill "two tuns of strong 
ale, a comb of mild ale, a comb of Welsh ale; seven oxen, six sheep, forty 
cheeses, thirty ambers of corn (120 bushels), four ambers of meal." 



975] THE SHIRE AND THE SHIREM5t. 43 

off the Danes (Danegeld) and another for building ships (sMp^ 
aeld) -the first taxes, properly so called, in English history 
Durino- the ninth and tenth centuries the king generally acted 
with the advice of his witan when he made a will,^ or when 
he granted to church or thegn any of his royal claims upon 
the lands of his subjects, though afterwards the witan did 
nothing more than sign the deed as witnesses. 

The king and the witan on a very few occasions heard cases 
not dealt with in the courts of the shire and the hundred 
though generally the local courts were expected to settle all 
disputes and difficulties by themselves. In feuds between 
kinsmen, arising from murder, the witan were expected to see 
that justice was done and recompense made, if possible, in 
conclusion, it may be said that the witan did not act without 
the cooperation of the king, nor the king without the advice 
and consent of the witan. . , c 

30 The Shire and the Shiremot. — The earliest Anglo-Saxon 
shires 2 were regions originally occupied by small but indepen- 
dent tribes, conquered by the West Saxons and made subject to 
the authority of the West Saxon king. Before the middle of 
the ninth century Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, and Surrey had been 
transformed into shires. In 851 Devon was added; m 860 
Hants and Berks; and later in the century Essex, Sussex 
Kent, and Middlesex. As the West Saxon kings continued 
their conquests north of the Thames, they made use of the 
shire system there also, but in different ways. In the north- 
east they kept the old tribal divisions, as the names Norfolk 
Suffolk, and Korthumbria attest ; but in Mercia, where the tribal 
groups of the Middle Anglians had been wiped out by the Dan- 
ish conquest, they seem to have applied a more artificial sys- 
tem They selected a leading town, such as Cambridge, Leices- 
ter, or Nottingham, and forming the surroun ding district into 

1 Notably in Alfred's case Plummer, Alfred, pp. 125-126. 

2 The word shire is not derived from share, as is /^^J^^^^^^y^^^^*;^^^^^^^^^ 
the shire and the ealdorman were in existence in the seventh century is 
evident from Ine's laws (690). 



44 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [975 

a shire, named it after that town. Some of the shires were 
not formed until the twelfth century. 

At the head of a shire, or a group of shires, was the ealdor- 
man, an official generally selected by the king and the witan 
from among the most prominent men of the locality. For this 
reason the ealdormen were apt to be natives of the territory 
they governed; their lands and kin would be there, and their 
interests would lie with the locality rather than with the king. 
In this respect they differed from that other prominent man of 
the shire — the shire-reeve or sheriff. The sheriff was in origin 
a royal servant, sent to take charge of the royal lands in the 
shire, to collect the king's revenue there, and to receive the 
king's share of the fines imposed by the courts. The ealdor- 
man was of great dignity, and could frequently trace his 
descent from the tribal kings of the region. The sheriff was 
at first a subordinate, an underling; but he was to rise as 
monarchy rose until in time his office became one of the most 
influential in the kingdom, sought for by men of highest rank. 

The shiremot, although in most cases the direct successor 
of the old tribal folkmot, had by the time of Eadgar and his 
sons become of less consequence than the mot of the hundred. 
The shire usually coincided with the diocese, and the bishop, as 
well as the ealdorman and the sheriff, was present at its meet- 
ings. There were present also the landowners of the shire, 
who, if they did not wish to go, could send their reeves or 
stewards in their place. There seem also to have been present 
some of the better sort of villagers, but for what purpose or in 
what capacity we do not know. The shiremot met only twice 
a year, although at a later time provision was made for more 
frequent meetings if necessary. . This court concerned itself 
chiefly with land questions and "guarded the folklaw," that 
is, saw that the old tribal customs were maintained. It was 
also called upon, probably, to deal with some matters of an 
ecclesiastical character, and to consider cases for which, after 
three trials, a hearing could not be obtained in the hundred 
court. 



975] THE VILL. 45 

31. The Hundred and the Hundredmot. — The origin of the 
hundred is uncertain j it had probably existed from very early 
times as a division of the older tribal kingdoms. Eadmund 
was the first, however, to mention it in his laws by that name, 
though it is probably referred to in earlier laws under more 
general terras. Eadgar was the first, so far as we know, to 
use it as a convenient division in the maintenance of peace and 
justice. In the Danish region of the north the corresponding 
district was called the wapentake. The hundreds were much 
smaller in eastern than in western England, because the people, 
at first conquering slowly, had settled more compactly. 

The hundred was the busiest of all the divisions of the king- 
dom, and the most important.^ It performed its work through 
a court, or mot, which met every four weeks.^ At the head of 
the mot was the sheriff or one of his subordinates, and possi- 
bly some ecclesiastic, like an archdeacon, sat with the sheriff, 
just as in the shiremot the bishop sat with the ealdorman. 
Probably those who were present at this court were much 
the same as those who were present at the shiremots. The 
court had a great variety of matters to deal with : some civil, 
concerning land; others criminal, concerning house-breaking, 
blood-shedding, assault, theft, and the like; and still others 
ecclesiastical, concerning breaches of church law. Each per- 
son was summoned seven days before the court met; if he did 
not appear, he was heavily fined, and if after three summons 
he still remained away, he lost his property. Every one 
had to seek justice first in the hundred court, which met fre- 
quently, and in which a decision was consequently speedily 
reached. If after three trials the freeman could not obtain 
justice in the hundred court, he might then go to the shire 
court ; but from the latter court there was usually no higher 
appeal.^ 

32. The Vill. — Within the hundred were the tuns, or vills, 
both of which names refer to the same thing, one being the 

i Lee, p. 91. « Lee, p. 94. « Lee, p. 93. 



46 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [976 

English, the other the Latin form. Some of the tuns were 
doubtless single farmsteads; but others, and these were the 
more common, were clusters of houses occupied by the tunsmen 
or villagers. The tun or vill was composed of homesteads, 
surrounded by open fields in which the villagers labored, and 
by meadows, pasture, waste, and forest. The open fields were 
broad expanses of arable land, divided into narrow strips, 
which were so distributed as to give each villager an equal 
share in the field. Each villager had a homestead, a certain 
number of the strips, and definite rights in the meadows and 
pastures.^ The villagers owned the land in severalty, but all 
ploughed, sowed, and reaped together. The vill, however, had 
no political importance, and is rarely mentioned in the laws. 
Only once do the records tell us that the king and the witan 
made any use of it.^ This was in Ead gar's time, when the 
people of the vill were required to report strange cattle 
brought into their pasture ; but even in this case the hundred 
was held responsible if it were found that the cattle had been 
stolen, and not bought in the presence of witnesses, as the law 
required (p. 37). 

The inhabitants of the vills were originally the freemen of 
the tribes. During the long struggle with the Danes, many of 
these free villagers, losing all that they possessed, had been 
compelled to seek the protection of more powerful landowners ; 
while others, reduced to poverty by the heavy cost of the war 
carried on in Wessex and Mercia, had pledged their lands, and 
on receiving them back had bound themselves to new obliga- 
tions of payment and labor. This change in the condition of 
the old freemen came about more easily because the West 
Saxon kings, since Alfred, had required every freeman to find 
a lord who should be responsible for his keeping of the peace, 
and for his appearing at the hundred court when wanted.^ 
Probably the change had not gone very far by the time of 

1 Seebohm, The English Village Community, Chap. IV. 

2 Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 147. 
s Lee, p. 88, § 26. 



975] THE BURGH. 47 

Eadgar, nor had it yet altered seriously the general condition 
of the people. Each villager, whether he had pledged himself 
and his land or not, had his wergeld, or price at which he was 
valued, in case he were murdered ; ^ each was entitled to bear 
arms and serve in the army ; and each could get justice in the 
hundred mot. 

33. The Burgh. — Besides the tuns and vills there were also 
burghs, settlements more compact than the vills, with larger 
numbers of inhabitants, and with special privileges which the 
vills did not possess. Most of the burghs at this early time 
were half agricultural communities and half trading centres, 
located in places, on the coast or inland, favorable for trade 
and fortification. The origin of the burghs is obscure. Some 
of them, such as Lincoln and Winchester, go back to the days 
of the Eoman occupation, though continued occupation cannot 
be proved; others, such as Cambridge,^ were vills in origin, 
with open fields, pastures, and waste, but they were not ordi- 
nary vills, for many of them were the chief towns of shires, 
possessing a market and a court ; while others, such as Worces- 
ter, Hertford, and Warwick, may trace their origin to some 
of the fortresses erected by the West Saxon kings, notably, by 
Eadward the Elder, during the wars with the Danes. Trade 
gave to these centres their exceptional advantages ; so that the 
name " burg " got restricted either to those places specially 
fortified and capable of defence, which were in convenient 
trading localities, or to those places which, as seats of the 
royal administration, had become trading centres because they 
were under the special protection of the king's peace. 

In these burghs were placed the markets, and in them 
money was coined and business transacted. To fortify and 
defend the burghs was one of the duties imposed upon every 



1 Lee, p. 89, § 29. 

2 Maitland, Township and Borough, p. 44. An admirable book in which to 
study the early burgh. " In most English boroughs during the greater part of 
the eleventh century agriculture was a more conspicuous element than trade 
and industry." Gross, Gild Merchant, Vol. I, p. 3, note 2. 



48 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [975 

Anglo-Saxon landowner: this obligation fell sometimes on 
the inhabitants or on those in the immediate neighborhood, 
sometimes on all the people of the shire. Most interesting of 
all the special privileges of a burgh were its judicial rights. 
Eadgar decreed that three times a year a burghgemot should 
meet, over which the burgh-reeve should preside. This court 
had to do with the affairs of the burghers just as the hundred- 
mot had to do with affairs of the people of the hundred ; for a 
burgh in which a court was held was not under the jurisdiction 
of the hundred court, although it was in the shire and under 
the sheriff. 

34. The Land System : ^ Folkland. — To-day we think of land 
as worth owning whether we actually use it or not ; but the 
Anglo-Saxons did not think so, and consequently valued land 
only because it could furnish support or revenue, or because it 
could be given away. At first, there was only one name for 
all occupied land, namely, folkland. In fact, all lands were 
folklands to those who occupied and cultivated them. It did 
not matter whether they had been part of the original distri- 
bution among families and individuals or had been brought 
into use at a later time. The right to use such lands was based 
upon custom, and the family or individuals possessing or dis- 
posing of such lands were governed by the unwritten law of the 
folk — the folk law. That is why these lands were called folk- 
lands. All the Anglo-Saxons, from king to non-noble freeman, 
who possessed land at all, had folklands, and each family or 
individual was supported by the food which these lands fur- 
nished. 

35. Bookland. — The king as an individual had his own folk- 
lands or royal demesnes, from which he derived a large part of 
his support. But as Mng he had, as we have seen (pp. 7-8), 
special rights over the people who were his subjects and over 
the folklands that they possessed, — rights to food and services 
of various kinds. In time, these rights came to be looked upon 

1 Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 226-258, 293-318. 



9?6J THE LAND SYSTEM. 49 

as the property of the king and were spoken of as royal rights. 
At first, the king alone enjoyed these rights; but when the 
monks came and the conversion of the English began, and he 
desired for the good of his soul to make gifts to the church, he 
began to give these rights away. The monks took good care 
that these gifts should be written in Roman fashion in a deed 
and signed, so that from the time of Ji^thelbirht we have the 
charters or books, written mainly in Latin, which tell us of 
the gifts of the king. These grants were always of lands 
already occupied or in large part occupied ; so that the value 
of the gift lay not in the land itself, but in the revenue and 
services which the monks received from the people who 
inhabited it. These lands were called booklands, and a single 
bookland could include many folklands. Afterward the kings 
made similar grants to their thegns for faithful service done. 

36. Loanland. — At first booklands were given without any 
condition attached, and though the consent of the king was 
often asked, the person receiving them could generally give 
them away or leave them to his successors. He was freed 
from all payment or service to the king except the trinoda 
necessitas,^ which included ship-service and army-service, repair 
of bridges, and the maintenance of fortresses. 

In the ninth century, however, we meet with grants that were 
not outright gifts ; they were loans. The church made the greater 
number of these loans, for the idea of the " loan,'' like the idea of 
the " book," was brought to England from the Continent by the 
church. Such loans came out of the booklands which the church 
had received from the king, and were made to thegns, chiefly 
those of high rank. But the thegn could not dispose of the land 
as he pleased; the church had merely loaned it to him that he 
might enjoy the revenues from it for a limited time, that is, dur- 
ing his life and usually the lives of two others. In return for this 

1 A very good illustration is a charter of 719, in which the king says, '* Dur- 
ing my life I grant that all monasteries and churches of my kingdom shall be 
exempt from all public burdens, except the construction of fortresses and 
bridges, from which no one can be released." 



50 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [975 

concession the thegn would pay a sum of money, or an annual 
rent, or would bind himself to do some service for the church 
or bishop from whom he had received the land. Such lands 
were called loanlands. 

We see then that the same piece of land could be a folkland, 
a part of a bookland, and a loanland at the same time. It 
would be folklaud to the occupiers, that is, the villagers; book- 
land to the monastery which received it from the king ; and 
loanland to the thegn who received it from the church on loan 
for life. Later bookland and loanland became confused, be- 
cause in the case of each the grant was recorded in a deed or 
book. 

37. General Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Life. — Agriculture was 
the dominant interest among the Anglo-Saxons. Men tilled the 
fields and raised barley, oats, wheat, beans, and the like ; they 
lived in thatched huts without chimneys, and kept oxen, cows, 
sheep, goats, swine, poultry, and bees. Upon the church- 
lands and in the burghs stone was used in building, and the 
standard of life was higher than in the country places. There 
was very little communication, men rarely travelled, and the 
produce of a vill was not taken away to be sold, but was con- 
sumed where it was raised. There was almost no money in 
circulation except in the trading centres. Men paid their dues 
to the king or to the church in certain amounts of grain or 
malt, honey and ale, in a certain number of hens and chickens, 
fish, ewes, or in the performance of certain duties. To a life 
like this, invasion and war were bound to be injurious, not only 
because crops would be destroyed, but also because men would 
be taken away from their ploughing and harvesting. 

Keeping the peace was at first simply a local obligation.^ 
Family groups were held responsible for the conduct of their 
members, individual persons were held responsible for those 
of their households ; and later, freemen were required to find 



1 A very readable and clear statement of the king's peace is in Pollock's 
Oxford Lectures, "The King's Peace," pp. 70-86. 



975] GENERAL ASPECTS OF ANGLO-SAXON LIFE. 51 

lords who would be surety for their good behavior. A man 
might be charged with a great crime, a felony; or a lesser 
crime, a trespass. If the former, he was at the king's mercy j 
if the latter, he might get off with paying a fine. 

But how was he proved guilty ? First, in the presence of the 
free landowners, who made up the hundred court and acted 
as judges, he was charged with the crime by the complainant 
in formal words. This charge he answered in words equally 
formal. Then those present decided, not on the merits of the 
case, but according to the correctness of the forms used, which 
of the two should be put to the proof. Such a method, 
which seems to us strange, was necessary in an age when all 
business in the courts and almost everywhere else was con- 
ducted by word of mouth and no records were kept. Ability 
to remember, or to find others who remembered, was of prime 
importance to the Anglo-Saxons. The one adjudged guilty 
could clear himself by the ordeal of water, that is, if he sank 
after being thrown in, he was innocent ; or by the ordeal of 
fire, which necessitated his walking over or carrying hot 
irons, and if after three days he showed the marks of the 
burns, he was guilty ; or by the testimony of a certain number 
of oath-helpers or compurgators, who bore witness to his 
character.^ 

The Angles and Saxons, when they came to Britain, must 
have spoken a language almost entirely free from an admixture 
of foreign words. After they had settled in the island, a few 
Latin and Celtic words crept in, but the number was small. 
In time, dialects arose, chief of which were the West Saxon, 
the Mercian, and the Northumbrian. Slowly a literature, 
poetry and prose, came into existence. But learned men wrote 
in Latin, and most of the charters are in that language. An- 
glo-Saxon, however, was the tongue of the Chronicle, of the 

1 Medley, English Constitutional History, pp. 347-348 ; Pollock and Mait- 
land, History of English Law, 2d ed., Vol. II, pp. 598-608; Social England 
(1st ed.), Vol. I, pp. 285-286; Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV, No. 4 (How- 
land, " Ordeal, Compurgation, Excommunication and Interdict"), pp. 1-16. 



52 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [975 

laws, of the poets, and of such preachers as iElfric and Wulf- 
stan. It was everywhere the speech of the people. 



References for Chapter III. — There is no satisfactory account of 
Anglo-Saxon institutions in compact and complete form. The statements 
in' Terry's History of England (1901, 5th ed.) are trustworthy but so 
scattered as to leave a confused impression on the mind of the reader. 
Medley's Constitutional History (5th ed.) is fully representative of 
modern scholarship, but is open to the same criticism. White's The 
Making of the English Constitution (1908), Part I, contains the best 
account that we have, but is somewhat diffuse and in parts lacks dis- 
tinctness. The introduction to Stubbs's Select Charters (9th ed. revised 
by H. W. C. Davis, 1913) contains a very cautious statement, afterwards 
amplified in the same author's Constitutional History^ Vol. I, pp. 71-182. 
It needs, however, to be revised in many important particulars. Modern 
statements rest mainly upon : Seebohm's Village Community (1883), 
Tribal Customs in Anglo-Saxon Law (1902), and Customary Acres and 
Their Historical Importance (1914), Maitland's Domesday Book and Be- 
yond (1897), VinogradofE's Growth of the Manor (1905), Chadwick's 
Studies in Anglo-Saxon Institutions (1905) and Origin of the English 
Nation, and Larson's The King''s Household before the Norman Conquest 
(1904). A summing up of the evidence to date can be obtained from 
Lipson's Economic History of England (1915), Chap. I. On the land 
system, Vinogradoff's article in E, H. R., 1893, p. 1, is revolutionary ; 
Medley's account (pp. 17-19) is excellent. For the place of the vill in 
Anglo-Saxon life see Maitland, as above, pp. 147-150, 346-356 ; on the 
field systems. Gray, English Field Systems (1915) ; on frankpledge, 
Morris, The Frankpledge System (1910) ; on the ordeals. Lea, Supersti- 
tion and Force (1878) ; and on the courts of law, Zinkheisen, Political 
Science Quarterly, Vol. X, p. 132. Ramsay's Foundations of England, 
2 vols. (1898) is a storehouse of information ; Oman's A History of the 
Art of War (1898) contains a chapter on the military system. For litera- 
ture see Earle's Anglo-Saxon Literature (1884) and Ten Brink's Early 
English Literature (1884), and for language, Wyld, The Historical 
Study of the Mother Tongue (1906) and Smith's The English Language 
(1912). 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM THE DANISH TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

38. ^thelred and the Danes. — The period from the close of 
Eadgar's reign to the Norman conquest (975-1066) was one of 
great disturbance and confusion. With few exceptions the 
Anglo-Saxon kings showed little of the military sagacity and 
statesmanship of their predecessors. From without, continued 
Danish attacks brought misery to the people and finally ended 
with the accession of a line of Danish kings to the English 
throne ; while from within the kingdom arose great territorial 
lords, whose ambitions and quarrels threatened England with 
disunion and civil war, the worst features of feudalism. 

After the short reign of Eadward the Martyr, whose violent 
death was the result of a disputed succession, ^thelred, the 
younger son of Eadgar, was raised to the throne in 979. Idle 
and incompetent, he was unfit to rule by himself, and his 
councillors, ambitious and evil-minded, gave him only bad 
advice, ^thelred the Redeless, " the unwisely advised," he 
was justly called in his own day. Around him were men who, 
taking advantage of his weakness, quarrelled among themselves 
for the leadership, and became, each in his own earldom, like 
independent lords. Thus the English, governed by an ineffi- 
cient king, and divided among themselves by the rivalries of 
the ealdormen, were in no condition to meet the attack of the 
Danes, who now appeared off their coasts. 

The new invasion of the Danes was very different from that 
of Alfred's day. It was the work of a Danish king and army, 
coming from a Danish kingdom, and it had a purpose and 
unity that the earlier movement had not possessed. The Dan- 
ish invasion of the ninth century was the last phase of a great 

63 



54 FROM DANISH TO NORMAN CONQUEST. [980 

tribal wandering, that is, it represented the work of tribes, not 
kings ; the invasion of the tenth and eleventh centuries was 
the work of kings, not tribes. In this sense Olaf, Sweyn, and 
Cnut were the forerunners of William the Conqueror, who, 
though not a king, was the head of a compact and well-organ- 
ized feudal state. 

The ships of the Danish conquerors were first seen in 980 
off Southampton, then off the east coast, and a little later off 
Dorset ; and they met with little opposition.^ The East Saxon 
ealdorman, the mighty Byrthnoth, was slain in a fight with 
Olaf, afterward king of Norway, at Maiden, August 11, 991, — 
a fight celebrated in one of the most spirited of old English 
songs.^ Then ^thelred and his witan, acting under the advice 
of Archbishop Siroc, made a peace with the Danish king, 
arranged the terms under which English and Danes should 
live side by side, each under his own law, and for the peace 
paid a price of £10,000.^ In 994, £16,000 were paid. These 
sums must have been exceedingly heavy. The money was 
raised by a tax on land, called Danegeld, — the first general 
tax levied in England, so far as we know, since there is no 
evidence to show how Alfred got the money that he paid to 
the Danes. But tribute once given was sought again more 
eagerly. One heretoga tried to resist, but in vain, for unity 
of military defence no longer existed. In 999 king and witan 
raised a ship force to cooperate with the land force, but so in- 
efficient was the management that nothing was accomplished ; 
and tribute was again paid to the amount of £24,000."* Finally, 



1 Lee, pp. 99-101. Compare Kendall, Nos. 10, 11. 

2 Ten Brink, Early English Literature, Vol. I, pp. 92-96. 

3 In JEthelred's laws we are told that " Two and twenty thousand pounds 
of gold and silver were paid to the (Danish) army for the peace." The sum 
named in the text is from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 

4 It is interesting to notice that from this time Scandinavia " was flooded 
with English silver money " of the coinage of ^thelred, and that to-day more 
coins of thi/'mintage are to be found in Scandinavian museums than in the 
British Museum. Keary, Introduction to the Catalogue of the Coiiis in the 
British Museum, Anglo-Saxon Series, Vol. II, p. Ixxxi. 



1016] 



^THELRED AND THE DANES. 



55 



in 1002, other measures having failed, ^theh-ed resorted to 
massacre ; and on St. Brice's day caused the Danish residents 
in southern England to be slain. 

Then came Sweyn Fork-beard, who had been among the 
earlier invaders and who returned now to wreak a bitter ven- 
geance on the English king for the death of his sister, slain on 
St. Brice's day. Blow after blow was struck ; towns were burned, 
harvests were ruined. In 1007 tribute to the enormous sum of 
£30,000 was paid, and in addition £3000 in East Kent. In 
1009 ships were again built, shipgeld was levied, a national fast 
observed ; but all to no purpose. Jealousy, treachery, and bad 
management prevailed and rendered all efforts useless. At last 
the men of the north, who had never wanted ^thelred for their 
king, went over to Sweyn ; Wessex, East Anglia, and London 
did the same. In 1014 Sweyn died, leaving the kingdom to his 
son Cnut. Then the English recalled ^thelred, who had been 
forced to flee to Normandy. But in 1016 ^thelred himself 
died, and was succeeded by his son Edmund, called Ironside for 
his bravery, — a much abler man than his father. For nine 

ANGLO-DANISH KINGS AND HOUSE OF GODWINE. 



Harold Bluetooth 

d. 985 

I 



Sweyn Styrbiorn of 

d. 1014 Sweden 

Cnut = ^Igifu 

= Emma, widow of 
^thelred II 



daughter 
Thorgils Sprakalegg 



Gytha 



Sweyn 
d. 1036 



Harold 
1037-1040 



Harthacnut 
1040-1042 



Godwine 
d. 1053 



Sweyn Eadgyth = 
d. 1052 Eadward the 
Confessor 



Harold Tostig Gyrth Leofwine 

1066 d. 1066 



56 



FROM DANISH TO NORMAN CONQUEST. 



[1016 



months Edmund carried on the struggle against Cnut in the 
north with courage and skill j then he died, and Cnut became 
the ruler of all the English. 

39. Cnut. — Cnut was about twenty-two years of age when, 
accepted by the East Anglians and West Saxons as their king, 
he became ruler of both English and Banes. He was already 
king of the Danes of Denmark, and in 1030 secured possession 
of the Norwegian kingdom also. Thus England, during Cnut's 
reign, was in a sense but a part of a great northern empire; an 
empire, however, not firmly united even under Cnut, but com- 
posed of three peoples representing different degrees of civili- 




zation, and widely separated from each other by intervening 
waters. Although Cnut had shown the fierceness and cruelty 
of a viking in the earlier years of warfare, he exhibited a high 
order of statesmanship when he came to reign. He loved the 
English as his own people and favored the church, sometimes 
too ostentatiously. He became a true English king, carrying 
out the policy of his great predecessors of the house of Alfred, 
increasing the strength of the kingdom, and furthering the 
peace and prosperity of his people. 

40. The Great Earldoms. — One of his earliest acts was to 
divide England into four provinces, or earldoms, each of which 
he placed eventually under a man whom he could trust.* The 



1 Lee, p. 101. 



1034J CNUT'S GOVERNMENT AND LAW. 57 

earldoms, which corresponded very closely to the older eal- 
dormanries, conformed to the four great tribal divisions into 
which England had always been separated, even under the 
West Saxon kings. Two, East Anglia and Northumbria, were 
in the east and north ; and two, Mercia and Wessex, were in 
the centre and south. The Northumbrians, East Anglians, 
Mercians, and West Saxons may be called the four races of the 
English nation. Of the West Saxons Cnut himself took the 
earldom, though he afterward gave it to Godwine, an English- 
man, who had helped him in his wars. The earldom of the 
East Anglians he gave at first to Thurkill, a Dane ; that of 
Mercia was eventually given to Leofric, an Englishman, the 
husband of Lady Godiva; and that of Northumbria eventually 
to Siward of the old Anglo-Danish house. Cnut kept the con- 
trol of these earldoms in his own hands, as had Eadgar that 
of the ealdormanries ; and as long as he lived no earl was 
suthciently strong to usurp royal power or to seize the king- 
ship. All that was to take place after Cnut's death. 

41. Cnut's Government and Law. — In his government of the 
kingdom Cnut sought to blot out all traces of the earlier wars 
and to unite English and Danes as one people under a peaceful 
and prosperous rule. To this end he sent his entire Danish 
army back to Denmark in 1018, and refrained from alienating 
his English subjects by introducing Danish law and Danish 
officials into the kingdom. He gathered English and Danes 
together at Oxford in 1018, where all chose Ead gar's law and 
SAVore to observe it; and at a council held at Winchester, some- 
time between 1027 and 1034, he issued, with the advice of his 
witan, the most important code of law that had thus far ap- 
peared. It was English law, written in Anglo-Saxon, the law 
of Alfred, ^thelstan, and Eadgar, enlarged and improved.^ 

This law Cnut bade men obey, and obedience brought peace 
and concord to England. He did what Eadgar had done for 
the local courts, requiring men to go first to the hundredmot for 

1 Lee, pp. 101-102. 



58 FROM DANISH TO NORMAN CONQUEST. [1018 

justice, and in order to hasten decisions in cases carried from 
the hundredmots to the shiremots, he allowed the latter to meet 
more frequently. Like his predecessors, he discouraged appeals 
to the king. He protected the weak by commanding every one 
to swear to keep the peace, and endeavored to enforce the law 
of Alfred and ^Ethelstan that every one should have a surety 
responsible for his appearance at court. He forbade extor- 
tions and injustice, admonished his people to observe Sunday, 
to avoid murder and perjury, and to obey the commands of 
the church.* All these orders he vigorously enforced. 

42. Cnut's Foreign Relations and Attitude toward the Church. 
— In foreign matters Cnut displayed the same far-sighted 
statesmanship. His interests were wider than had been 
those of any English king up to this time. He ruled Sweden, 
Denmark, and Norway; he preserved peaceful relations with 
the Welsh and Scots ; and when in 1018 Malcolm II defeated 
the Northumbrians in a battle at Carham on the Tweed and 
seized Lothian, Cnut confirmed the cession and so separated 
that region permanently from England, — an event of prime 
importance in Scottish history. Hoping to prevent any at- 
tempt of the Normans to invade England in behalf of the sons of 
^thelred, he married Emma, ^thelred's widow, herself a daugh- 
ter of a Norman duke. He held frequent communication with 
Conrad II, one of the ablest kings of Germany and emperor 
of the Holy Eoman Empire, and effected a marriage between 
Conrad's son and his own daughter. And lastly, he brought 
the English church into closer touch with Eome. In 1027 he 
himself went on a pilgrimage thither, where he was received 
with marks of distinguished favor, and where he witnessed the 
coronation of Conrad. His experiences at Rome he narrated in 
a famous letter which he sent back to his people.^ Possessed 
of great wealth from the revenues of all his kingdoms, he gave 
liberally to churches and monasteries in England and France, 



1 "Charter of Cnut," Lee, pp. 103-105. 

2 Lee, pp. 105-107; Colby, No. 10; Kendall, No. 12. 



J035] THE SUCCESSORS OF CNUT. 69 

and was hailed as a benefactor by the church, both at home 
and abroad. 

43. Danish Influence in England. — Cnut ruled for twenty 
years, at the end of which time the Danish influence had made 
itself permanently felt in England. The Danish invasion and 
rule had introduced a new and hardier element into English 
life, for the Danes were stronger, freer, and more adventurous 
than were the Anglo-Saxons of Cnut's day. There is some 
reason to think that greater freedom existed in the Danelaw 
than elsewhere, and that the subjection of the peasantry went 
on more slowly there than in the south, which had been the 
scene of the bloodiest wars. On the other hand, Cnut's levies 
of Danegeld — that of £72,000 in 1018, for example — must 
have had a tremendous effect in reducing the people to poverty ; 
and there is reason to think that from this time the Danegeld, 
as a tax for the purpose of revenue and no longer as a tribute 
to buy off the Danes, was more or less regularly imposed. 

Other traces of Danish influence are found in names, in forms 
of landholding, in the promotion of new industries, and pre- 
eminently in the introduction of a new monetary system. Lon- 
don became, in a sense, a Scandinavian port, and commerce 
with Flanders, Normandy, France, Germany, and the Baltic 
began to increase. The Danes were traders, and the union of 
Norway, Denmark, and England and the close connection of 
England with the Continent were favorable to commerce and 
navigation. Twenty years of prosperity gave a great impetus 
to the boroughs, particularly those of the coasts and rivers, 
and London, Chester, and Bristol grew rapidly in importance. 

44. The Successors of Cnut. — No sooner had Cnut died 
(1035) than his great empire fell apart. Sweyn, the eldest son, 
took Norway ; Harthacnut, the son of Emma, received Den- 
mark ; and Harold, an illegitimate son, was supported by the 
Anglo-Danes for the kingship of England. Within England, 
where there was no longer a strong king to control the rival 
earls, tendencies toward disunion made themselves felt more 
strongly than before. The great earls of Wessex and Mercia, 



60 FROM DANISH TO NORMAN CONQUEST. [1042 

God wine and Leofric, began a struggle for the leadership, 
Leofric supporting the cause of Harold, Godwine that of 
Harthacnut. Godwine obtained the consent of the people 
south of the Thames to receive Harthacnut as king, but 
his success was only temporary, for Harthacnut refused to 
leave Denmark. Therefore Harold became sole ruler in 
1037, and reigned till 1040. When he died, the people 
chose Harthacnut, who came to England and ruled for two 
years. Neither of these men did the least thing to bring 
unity or peace to England, or to check the ambition and 
power of the great earls. In 1042 Harthacnut died "as he 
stood at his drink'' at the marriage feast of one of his fol- 
lowers ; and the witan, acting under the advice of Godwine, 
chose as his successor Eadward, son of JEthelred and Emma 
of Normandy. 

45. Eadward the Confessor. — England, which at this time 
needed the firm hand and vigorous policy of a strong guide and 
leader, now fell to the lot of one of the weakest of the English 
line. Saintly, Eadward the Confessor may have been ; but he 
was far from competent to gather into his hands the reins of 
power and to be king in fact as well as in name. During the 
first nine years of his twenty years' reign he was ruled by 
Godwine, who became the power behind the throne, and whose 
daughter, Eadgyth, he married. He gave over to the earl the 
chief management of the kingdom, and placed a number of the 
earl's sons in positions of prominence. To Harold, the second 
son, he gave the earldom of East Anglia, and to Sweyn, the 
eldest, and to Beorn, a nephew, smaller earldoms, so that the 
house of Godwine seemed supreme. 

But this harmony between the king and the great earl was 
not destined to last. Eadward had been brought up a Norman, 
and at his accession to the throne there came with him to 
England not only Norman customs and speech but also Norman 
favorites, who were put into places of influence and promi- 
nence. Robert of Jumieges was made archbishop of Canter- 
bury, other Normans were made bishops or abbots, many Nor 




ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND 
and IRELAND 
before 1066- 

SCALE OF MILES 

25 00 76 100 125 150 

Longitude West 



from Greenwich 



1053] HAROLD. 61 

man lords received lands whereon they erected castles and 
strongholds, while maritime cities, such as Rouen, received 
harbor privileges on the English coast. The growing im- 
portance of the Normans angered the English earl and his 
followers. In 1050, when Eustace of Boulogne, the king's 
brother-in-law, was returning from a visit to Eadward, a 
quarrel broke out between his followers and the men of 
Dover, the latter of whom drove the Normans out of the town. 
Eustace complained to the king, and Eadward ordered God- 
wine to punish the men of Dover j but Godwine refused to 
obey, claiming that the Englishmen were in the right. As a 
result Eadward and the witan, urged on by Lfeofric of Mercia, 
outlawed the house of Godwine. Some of the family went to 
Elanders, a region ruled by a count hostile to the Normans ; 
but Harold, who was half a Dane, his mother being Gytha, a 
cousin of Cnut, fled to Ireland and lived for a time among the 
Danish settlers there. The king, rid of the powerful English 
earl, gave himself up to the influence of his Norman favorites. 

But the victory of the Normans was not for long. In 1052 
Harold, returning, ravaged the Devon coast, and Godwine, leav- 
ing Bruges, joined Harold at the Isle of Wight. A struggle 
was imminent ; but the people " were lothf ul to fight against 
those of their own race," and finally the witan inlawed God- 
wine and his family and gave back to him his earldom " as 
full and as free as he before possessed it." At the same time 
they drove out the Normans : Robert, the archbishop, William 
of London, Ulf of Dorchester, and many guilty knights and 
barons. Godwine was, however, destined to enjoy his triumph 
but one year, for in 1053, as he sat with the king at Win- 
chester, he died. Sweyn having died in exile, Harold succeeded 
to his power and earldom and became for fourteen years the 
real ruler of England. 

46. Harold. — The early years of Harold's government, until 
he himself became the elected king of the English, were spent 
in an attempt to unite English, Normans, and Danes by a 
policy of conciliation^ and to strengthen the frontiers of the 



KINGS IN SCOTLAND BEFORE THE TIME OF MALCOLM IIL 



Angus MacFergus 

king of Picts 

731-761 

I 
Constantin I 

789-820 

king of Picts and Scots 



Alpin 
king of Dalriada 



Constantin III 

king of Scots 

900-942 



Kenneth Mac Alpin Donald 

king of united Picts and Scots 860-863 
844-860 

I 

Constantin II 

863-877 

Norwegian Conquest 



Donald II 
king of Cumbria 

I 
Malcolm I 

king of Scots 

942-954 

I 

Kenneth II 
971-995 

I 

Malcolm II 

adds Lothian 

1005-1034 



Constantin IV 
995-997 



Kenneth III 
997-1005 



Crinan, abbot of Dunkeld 



Duncan 
1034-1040 



Macbeth = Gruoch 
1040-1057 



Malcolm 



[62 



1065] HAROLD. 63 

iingdom by a policy of war. He admitted many Normans 
into England and allowed them to reside there, even giving 
them places about the person of the king, but refusing to grant 
them political power. Few of Norman blood became earls or 
bishops. To demonstrate his ability as a warrior and to guard 
the kingdom from invasion he undertook, and caused others 
to undertake, campaigns of considerable importance. In 1054 
he encouraged Siward, the powerful earl of North umbria, to 
attack Macbeth, who, claiming the throne of the Scots on a 
pretext of relationship, had slain King Duncan, grandson of 
Malcolm II, fourteen years before, and taken possession of 
the kingdom.^ Siward's attack was only partly successful, and 
it was left for Duncan's son, Malcolm, to avenge his father. 
Malcolm had lived for many years at the court of Eadward 
the Confessor and later married Margaret, granddaughter of 
Edmund Ironsides. In 1057 Malcolm attacked Macbeth and 
slew him, becoming king of the Scots as Malcolm III, while 
Siward became the guardian of the northern frontier. 

Harold next carried on a war of eight years' duration with 
Gruffydd, ruler of the Britons of North Wales, who was aided 
by the traitorous ^Ifgar, earl of East Anglia and son of Leofric, 
earl of Mercia. Not until 1063, when Gruffydd was treacher- 
ously slain, was the war brought to an end. By these means 
the frontiers on the north and west were rendered more 
secure. 

In the meantime, within the kingdom important changes 
had taken place in the control of the great earldoms. God- 
win e had been earl of the West Saxons, Leofric of the Mer- 
cians, and Siward of the Northumbrians. On the death of 
God wine, Harold had taken his earldom, and ^Ifgar, son of 
Leofric, had taken Harold's place as earl of the East Anglians. 
When Leofric died, ^Ifgar became earl of the Mercians, 
and on Siward's death King Edward gave Northumbria to 
Harold's brother, Tostig. Twice ^Ifgar rebelled and twice 

1 Shakespeare's picture of Duncan and Macbeth is without historical value. 



I 



64 FROM DANISH TO NORMAN CONQUEST. [1066 

was he outlawed, and his son, Eadwine, was made earl in his 
place. In 1065, the Northumbrian Danes rose against Tostig, 
who had proved a brutal and tactless ruler, and expelled him 
from his earldom. His place was given to the second son of 
^Ifgar, Morkere. Thus two of the largest portions of Eng- 
land, Mercia and Northumbria, were inhabited by rival peoples, 
under the rule of rival earls, jealous of the power of Harold ; 
while his own brother was an outlaw, ready to take up arms 
against him should the opportunity offer. At this juncture, 
January, 1066, Eadward the Confessor died, and Harold, the 
strongest candidate, though not, according to Anglo-Saxon 
notions of heredity, the legitimate heir to the throne, was 
chosen by the witan as king. 

47. England in io66. — In the year 1066 England seemed to 
be in a condition bordering on anarchy. There existed no 
strong central authority powerful enough to bind together the 
different parts of the country ; and the earls, though not inde- 
pendent, were exercising independent powers. They had prac- 
tically made their earldoms hereditary; and each within his 
territory controlled the army, undertook expeditions and made 
war on his own account, received the revenues, and to some 
extent managed the church. The Mercians, Northumbrians, 
and East Anglians were jealous of the West Saxons and 
resented their leadership, and there was no true national unity 
in the land. 

In different parts of the country a new relationship, as yet 
social rather than political in character, called feudalism, was 
beginning to appear. Eadward the Confessor had weakened 
his royal authority by granting to great ecclesiastical lords the 
right to try offences committed within their territories, and had 
freed them from the control of the royal officers. Churches 
were loaning portions of land to lay lords to hold for a fixed 
time in return for personal service. Some of these great lords, 
both ecclesiastical and lay, were controlling the hundred courts 
and were themselves receiving all the fines from those courts. 
Meanwhile men of humbler station had continued to seek the 



1066] ENGLAND IN 1066. 65 

protection of great lords and to take oaths of homage and 
fealty which bound each one to serve and defend his lord. 
Sometimes these men, who generally possessed small portions 
of land in the vills, pledged only their personal service, and 
kept their lands free from the lord's control ; sometimes, when 
very evil days came upon them, they were compelled to place 
their lands as well as themselves in the hands of a lord, for the 
lord alone could furnish the food, seed, and cattle that they 
needed. In this case the freeman became a tenant of the lord, 
and owed not only personal service, but labor service and pay- 
ments also. On the ecclesiastical estates this change in the 
condition of the old freemen had gone on more rapidly than 
elsewhere. Many villagers were already bound to work for 
their lord and to pay dues, and could not leave the land they 
cultivated. But a great variety of custom everywhere prevailed ; 
many men were free to choose their lords as they pleased, and 
no central body exercised control over the local courts or looked 
after local government. These conditions, combined with the 
growing power of great families and local lords, made England 
liable to rebellion and anarchy. And they made desirable, even 
at great cost and misery, the coming of a stronger people, whose 
leaders were to exhibit a genius for organization that the Anglo- 
Saxons had never possessed. 



References for Chapter IV. — Freeman's Norman Conquest (1865- 
1877) is a classic, but it is long, diffuse, and difficult to read. See prefer- 
ably his Short History, pp. 10-54, and his Old English History, pp. 186- 
296. Green's Conquest of England is equally valuable and much more 
readable. The best life of Cnut is Larson's Canute the Great (1912). 
A suggestive chapter on industrial conditions is given in Warner's Land- 
marks in English Industrial History (11th ed. 1910), Chap. I. For the 
decay in the life of the church see Hunt in A History of the English 
Church, Vol. I, pp. 381-415, and for its organization Stubbs's Constitu- 
tional History, Chap. VIII. In general the references already given 
concern this chapter also. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

48. William the Conqueror. — No sooner had Harold been 
elected king of England than William, the duke of Normandy, 
presented his claims to the English throne. William was one 
of the greatest and most ambitious of the feudal lords of 
France. He had made of Normandy a united feudal duchy and 
had himself become a lord more mighty even than the king of 
France, who was at this time little more than a powerful feudal 
lord. William had no difficulty in finding reasons for an expe- 
dition against England. He claimed that the English crown 
was his, in the first place, because as cousin to the childless 
Eadward the Confessor, he had a better title to the throne of 
England than had Harold, who was only the king's brother- 
in-law ; secondly, because on the occasion of a visit to England 
in 1051 Eadward had promised him the inheritance ; and finally, 
because Harold himself, when some years before he had been 
wrecked on the coast of Normandy, had sworn over sacred 
relics to help him win the crown. These claims had no value 
constitutionally, for only the witan could control the succes- 
sion, but they formed the only legal basis of William's position. 

Very important for the Norman duke was the consent of the 
pope, who in the years from 1059 to 1073 was laying the founda- 
tions for the greatest of mediaeval institutions — the mediaeval 
papacy. Pope Alexander II was angry with Harold for sup- 
porting the secular clergy instead of the monks and for up- 
holding the cause of Stigand, who had been uncanonically and 



1066] 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



67 



without the consent of the pope elected archbishop of Canter- 
bury after the flight of Robert of Juinieges in 1052. To the 
pope, Harold was an enemy because he desired an independent 
English church, a perjurer because he had broken an oath sworn 
over sacred relics/ a usurper because he had been illegally con- 
secrated by the archbishop of York. Alexander listened to 
William's appeal, and by blessing the expedition and sending a 
consecrated banner and a ring containing a hair of St. Peter's, 
transformed a feudal adventure into a holy crusade. 

Harold, though acting on the defensive, was weak because of 
the rivalry among the English earls and the want of military 

NORMAN AND ANGEVIN KINGS. 

William I 

King of England 

1066-1087 



Robert, Duke 

of Normandy 

d. 1135 



William II Henry I = Matilda 
Rufiis 1100-1135 of Scotland 



1087-1100 



= Adeliza 

of Brabant 



Adela = Stephen 
Count of 
Blois 



I 
William 

drowned 

1120 



Richard 

drowned 

1120 



Henry V = Matilda = Geoffrey 
the Emperor 



Eleanor of 
Aquitaine 



Stephen 
Count of 1135-1154 
Anjou I 

Henry II Eustace 

1154-1189 d. 1153 



I 1 ^ \ 1 

Henry, the Richard I Geoffrey = Constance John 

younger 1189-1199 | of Brittany 1199-1216 

Arthur 
d. 1203 



Henry III 

1216-1272 

I 
Edward I 

1272-1307 



Richard of Isabella = Joanna = 

Cornwall Frederick II Alexander II 

King of the Romans Emperor of Scotland 



1 In this age such an oath was deemed peculiarly binding. 



68 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1066 

unity and common purpose among the English peoples. The 
divisions that had weakened the English in the presence of the 
Danes continued to exist in equal measure in the struggles of 
the English and Danes against the Normans. Then, too, Harold 
had shown a lack of foresight in his dealings with others. He 
had not kept up the friendly alliance his father had formed with 
the count of Flanders, who was hostile to William and might at 
this juncture have checked the expedition; he had offended the 
pope, whose support was of the greatest aid to William; and, per- 
haps most important of all, he had quarrelled with his brother 
Tostig, who deemed Harold responsible for his outlawry. 

49. Battle of Stamford Bridge. — Harold, confident of success, 
was waiting for the attack of the Normans, when he suddenly 
learned that Tostig, whom some have thought to have been 
acting in collusion with William, had carried out his threat to 
invade England from the north. With him came Harold 
Hardrada, boldest of the Viking kings, with a force sufficient, 
it is said, to fill three hundred ships. Eager to meet this dan- 
ger before William should land in the south, Harold hastened 
northward, took the enemy by surprise at Stamford Bridge, near 
York, and defeated them in a brilliant battle, on September 25, 
1066.^ Among the slain were Tostig and Harold Hardrada. 

Scarcely was the battle won, when word came that the Nor- 
mans had landed on the coast of Kent. Immediately Harold, 
with his huscarls,^ made forced marches southward, bidding the 
northern earls follow with the men of their earldoms ; but Ead- 
wine and Morkere traitorously lagged behind and gave no aid. 

50. Battle of Hastings. — Thus Harold was forced to depend 
on his huscarls and the hastily raised levies from Wessex. 
Determined to act on the defensive, he took up his position on 
a small hill a few miles from Hastings, near which the Normans 
had established their camp. On October 14, 1066, the famous 

1 Lee, No. 44, gives the account of Ordericus Vitalis ; Colby, No. 12, extracts 
from a Norwegian saga; Kendall, No. 13, an extract from the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle. 

2 Mercenaries attached to the king's household ; Oman, Art of War, p. 114 



1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 69 

battle was fought. The Normans were formed in a triple line 
of feudal knights on horseback, with heavy-armed infantry 
before them, and archers and crossbow men in the front line. 
The English under Harold consisted only of the huscarls, clad 
in helmets and armor, and bearing two-handed Danish axes. 
They formed a front line, protected, as they stood shoulder 
to shoulder, by a wall formed of their joined shields. Behind 
the huscarls were the light-armed levies of thegns and ceorls, 
carrying spears, sharpened stakes, and rude implements of 
agriculture ; and on the crown of the hill was raised the stand- 
ard of Harold, the golden dragon of Wessex. Against this 
solid mass William hurled his forces in vain. For six hours 
the battle raged, until at last, having failed to break the Eng- 
lish ranks by charges of horsemen and showers of arrows, the 
Normans ordered a feigned flight in order to draw the English 
from their position. The ruse succeeded. While the light- 
armed English levies were pursuing the retreating foe, a body 
of Norman horsemen thrust themselves between the pursuers 
and the huscarls on the hill. Fiercely fighting to the last, 
the huscarls held out till evening, when Harold fell, mortally 
wounded, and the great battle was over.^ The Normans were 



1 From 1892 to 1895 a " furious aud famous " controversy took place regard- 
ing the accuracy of Freeman's account of the battle of Hastings. The chief 
points at issue were : (1) whether the name Senlac should or should not be 
substituted for that of Hastings ; (2) whether Harold and his men did or did 
not erect a palisade in front of the line; (3) whether the light-armed levies 
were or were not placed on the flanks, instead of forming a solid mass in the 
rear. I have accepted the older version upheld by J. H. Round instead of that 
of Freeman, supported by Archer, Norgate, and Oman. To change at this late 
date the familiar name of a battle because in an account written seventy years 
after the battle was fought a name is found for the valley where the fight took 
place, seems to me to savor of affectation ; to introduce a palisade, when only 
one writer, and he not a contemporary, mentions it, seems to me an unsafe 
historical method, particularly as the meaning of the one passage is by no 
means clear, and those who accept the account as trustworthy are by no means 
agreed as to what the writer means ; to place the light-armed levies on the 
flanks is going counter to the known Anglo-Saxon practice of fighting in solid 
masses instead of in a long line, and is arranging a detail of the battle for 
which no evidence whatever can be obtained. 



70 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 



[1066 




HIC : EST : WADARD : HIC : COQUITUR : CARO ET HIC : M'lNISTRA- 
VERUNT MINISTRI 

Here is Wadard. Here meat is cooked and here the servants serve. 




[HIC : FRANCI PUGNANT ET CECIJDERUNT QUI ERANT : CUM 
HAROLDO : • HIC [HAROLD !• REX i- INTERFECTUS : EST] 

Here the French fight and those who were with Harold fell. 
Here King Harold was slain. 
From the Bayeux Tapestry. i 



1 The Bayeux Tapestry is a band of linen two hundred and thirty feet long 
by twenty inches wide, embroidered with scenes illustrating the Norman Con- 
quest. The figures are worked with worsted of eight different colors. The 
Tapestry was probably completed during the life of William the Conqueror. 

The portions reproduced above contain two important incidents of the inva- 
sion. The first shows a party of soldiers foraging for breakfast. The soldiers 
have driven the English from their square wooden houses and are bringing in 
sheep, oxen, and pigs. Of the mounted warrior, Wadard, little else is known. 
He carries a lasso and is interested in a footman who is bringing in a small 
pack horse. The next scene shows servants cooking the food seized. Two of 
them are suspending a large pot on forked sticks over a fire. Behind them on 
a shelf are fowls prepared for broiling. A baker is taking cakes from a stove. 

The second portion contains a picture of the last stage of the battle, when 
the huscarls defend the brow of the hill. In the centre is one of the common 
soldiers. In the margin Norman archers may be seen. The armor of Normans 
and Saxons was practically the same, formed of flat rings sewed on a founda- 
tion of leather or cloth. The helmet was of steel, with a nose guard ; the 
shield, kite-shaped ; the weapons of the Normans were bows and arrows, 
lances, swords, and battle-axes ; those of the Saxons, battle-axes and swords. 



1069] COMPLETION OF THE CONQUEST. 71 

victorious at Hastings because they were better equipped and 
better disciplined than the English, who, though they knew 
how to fight, did not know how to manoeuvre ; and the victory 
is significant because in winning it the Normans displayed in 
military matters that same superiority which they were after- 
ward to show in government and law as well. 

51. Completion of the Conquest. — The flower of Wessex was 
slain at Hastings, and further resistance was useless. The 
earls of the north refused to come to the rescue, and without 
opposition, William marched toward London. There the witan 
had hastily elected the setheling Eadgar, grandson of Eadmund 
Ironside, the last male descendant of the house of Alfred; 
but without an army Eadgar's position was untenable. After 
William, passing by London, had crossed the Thames at Wall- 
ingford and pitched his camp at Berkham stead, Eadgar with 
his earls submitted, and the witan chose William for king. On 
Christmas day, 1066, the Norman duke was crowned in London 
by the archbishop of York, and became the legally elected 
king of southern England. 

But what the south had done could not bind the north. 
Though Eadwine and Morkere submitted, and William re- 
turned to Normandy in 1067, the real conquest of England was 
only just begun. The very rivalries which had enabled Wil- 
liam to conquer at Hastings now made slow and difficult the 
subjugation of the rest of the English; and had the earls stood 
by each other in this crisis, the conquest begun at Hastings 
might never have been completed, and William might never 
have been called the Conqueror. But the defeat of the south 
taught the north no lesson. William, on sailing for Normandy, 
had left as regents Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and William Fitz- 
Osbern, whose rule seemed oppressive to a people unaccustomed 
to any efficient centralization of power. Koused by the excesses 
of the Normans, the unconquered English rose in revolt. But 
there was no unity of plan or action : the men of Devon and 
Cornwall gathered about the sons of Harold; the Northum- 
brians took up the cause of the setheling Eadgar and were 



72 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1067 

assisted by Malcolm III of the Scots, who in 1070 marred 
Eadgar's sister Margaret ; Sweyii of Denmark entered the strug- 
gle in his own behalf as the successor of Cnut ; while in Mercia, 
a local thegn, Eadric, asserted his right to the Mercian earldom. 

Such a variety of personal ambitions rendered hopeless the 
national cause. William, returning from Normandy in Decem- 
ber, 1067, took up each contest in turn. Exeter submitted 
after a siege of eighteen days, and Devonshire and Cornwall 
were subdued. The trouble with Yorkshire and Lincolnshire 
was more serious. At first the shires seemed to yield, and a 
Norman earl was placed in authority over them. But the 
revolt in Yorkshire broke out afresh in 1069, and a bold at- 
tempt was made by Cospatric, the earl, acting in conjunction 
with the setheling Eadgar and Malcolm his brother-in-law, to 
set up a separate kingdom in the north. William captured 
York, and in order finally to put down the rebellion, laid waste 
the country from the Humber to the Tees. Later he crossed 
the Tweed and forced Malcolm to become his vassal. This 
harrying of the north, whereby villages were burned and fields 
laid waste, broke the strength of the resistance, though it did 
not destroy the spirit of local independence ; and William, re- 
specting this feeling, was crowned a second time at York in 
1069, as if he had become the king of a separate kingdom. 
This freedom of the northern borderland was for many centu- 
ries to be an important factor in the history of England. 

By 1071 the last opposition was overcome. Eadric was 
driven into Wales, Cheshire and Shropshire were ravaged, and 
the famous struggle of the English under Hereward, a " man " 
of the abbot of Peterborough, among the marshes of Ely, was 
brought to an end. 

52. Introduction of the Feudal Land System. — As fast as the 
Conqueror subjugated the territory he confiscated the lands of 
those who had fought against him, and either took them him- 
self or distributed them among his followers, who held them 
in feudal tenure as vassals of the king. Some of the English, 
in all probability not a large number, who had neither fought 



1066] NORMAN FEUDALISM. 73 

against him nor revolted, he allowed to redeem their lands and 
to hold them from him by the same tenure as before. Thus 
for the complicated land system of the English was substi- 
tuted a perfectly simple arrangement, according to which all 
land was held feudally of the king. This land law, which 
was applied first in the south, was extended to the north, and 
no part of England escaped it. Two important features of 
this policy are to be noted: in the first place, these lands 
were now definitely held by military tenure, that is to say, 
each great vassal for the land that had been given to him was 
obliged to render to the king the service of a certain number 
of knights, and to lead them himself to war.^ The number of 
knights to be furnished was not determined by the amount 
of land held by the great vassal, but was fixed arbitrarily by 
King William. The whole number thus furnished amounted 
to about five thousand knights,^ who composed the army of the 
king. In the second place, the lands thus held were scattered 
over all England, so that no single great vassal had a very large 
amount in any one locality. This scattering of the vassal's 
lands, which was due not to any design of the Conqueror, but 
to the slowness of the conquest, saved England from one of 
the worst features of Continental feudalism. No man in Eng- 
land could become territorially powerful and independent, as 
had scores of great lords in France and Germany. The only 
portions of England that were at all independent were the 
great earldoms of the north, Cumberland, the southern portion 
of the old Strathclyde (Cumbria), and Northumberland, the 
Bernicia of the Saxon days. These border provinces, refusing 
to recognize the overlordship of either the Scottish or the 
English kings, were almost like independent states. 
In still another way did English feudalism differ from that 



1 Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV, No. 3 (Cheyney, "Documents Illus- 
trative of Feudalism "), § VII, 1, 2, 3. 

2 Round, Feudal England, p. 292. Mr. Round's notable paper on " Knight 
Service in England" has radically altered opinions regarding feudalism in 
England. 



74 THE NOKMAN CONQUEST. [1066 

of the Continent. In a great meeting held at Salisbury iu 
1086 William summoned all the landholders and made them 
swear allegiance to him as chief lord and king.^ Thus he laid 
down the rule that every landholder in England, whosesoever 
vassal he might be, owed allegiance first to the king and then 
to his own lord, and that, therefore, no English vassal might 
follow his lord against his king. In so doing William violated 
the recognized feudal principle that a vassal owed allegiance 
to his immediate lord only. But he could do this without 
danger, because as king he was able to enforce a rule that as 
feudal lord he would hardly liave dared to make. 

Thus, while William the Conqueror introduced into England 
an advanced form of feudalism with a uniform land tenure and 
a regular knight service, he prevented feudalism in England 
from developing its worst aspects, — the territorial indepen- 
dence of great lords, and private war. It looks very much as if 
eventually England would have had all these evils had Anglo- 
Saxon conditions been allowed to take their course, though 
there is nothing to show that the Anglo-Saxons would ever have 
developed high feudal ideas regarding contract and tenure.^ 

53. William's Government. — As William introduced a uni- 
form land system, so he established a strong and orderly cen- 
tral government. In Anglo-Saxon times the individual had not 
been under the direct control of any central authority, and this 
defect William remedied by creating such an authority. 

William was himself at the same time conqueror, king, and 
paramount feudal lord, of whom all men held their lands. 
He was absolute in authority, a very different king from 
Eadward the Confessor or Harold. The administration that he 
established was simple and centralized. When he was absent, 

1 Lee, p. 120. 

2 For feudalism on the Continent, consult Emerton, Introduction to the 
Middle Ages, Chap. XV; Robinson, Introduction to the History of Western 
Europe, Chap. IX; Munro, A History of the Middle Ages, Chap. V, and ac- 
companying manual, pp. 19-21 ; Seignobos, Tlie Feudal Regime (translated 
by Dow) ; Bemont and Monod, Medixval Europe (translated by Sloane), 
especially pp. 250-267. 



1089] LOCAL ADMINISTRATION. 75 

he placed the government temporarily in the hands of a jus- 
ticiar, who was always an ecclesiastic, that the office of justiciar 
might not become hereditary. William had also a chancellor 
or secretary, as Eadward the Confessor had had, who wrote 
letters, issued writs, and kept the royal seals ; and a treasurer, 
who received the royal revenue and was the guardian of the 
royal hoard. This hoard was located first at Winchester and 
afterward at Westminster, and consisted of coin, regalia, and 
jewels.-^ The treasurer probably disbursed money and audited 
the accounts, for a regular exchequer had not yet been estab- 
lished. 

William had also a council, called the " great council," which 
in composition was probably not unlike the old Anglo-Saxon 
witan. It was composed of the officers already mentioned, 
together with others of the royal household and certain earls 
and bishops whom the king desired to summon. Its duties 
were chiefly judicial, though it also acted as an advisory body 
to the king. It cannot be said to have limited his authority, 
for it never opposed him ; and the fact that its members were 
liable to be changed at the will of the king, prevented it from 
acting with any settled plan or policy. 

54. Local Administration. — William did not interfere with 
local affairs, but his policy broke up the old earldoms, which 
had been a great danger to monarchy in Anglo-Saxon times. 
He reduced the office of earl to a merely honorary dignity, and 
gave chief power into the hands of the sheriff. In consequence, 
the position of sheriff increased tremendously in importance, 
and during the reign of the Norman kings was sought by men 
of high rank. The sheriff collected the revenues, sat in the 
shire court as its presiding officer, and summoned to war all 
the men of the shire, except the knights, who were, of course, 
led by their lords, the tenants-in-chief, at the demand of the 
king. The period of English history when the sheriff was 

iHall, Antiquities of the Exchequer (2d ed.), Chaps. I, III. The name 
'exchequer' was derived from the checkered table, divided into squares, on 
which accounts were reckoned. 



76 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1084 

most important, fairly equalling the old earls in power, was 
during the reigns of the Norman kings. At a later time he 
abused his position and lost most of his authority. 

Though William in Substituting the sheriff for the earl 
strengthened the central authority, in other respects he left local 
institutions much as they had been before. He retained the 
laws of Eadward the Confessor, because he wished to reign as 
an English king.^ He preserved the courts of the shire and the 
hundred, made the hundred responsible for the murder of Nor- 
mans, enforced the custom of having witnesses present at the 
sales of cattle, required that every freeman should have a 
surety, and forbade the sale of men into slavery and punish- 
ment by mutilation. 

55. Sources of Revenue. — The Norman kings were eager for 
money, and in their manner of obtaining it were hard masters. 
William, who, like the Anglo-Saxon kings, received revenues 
from the old royal lands, had obtained by confiscation a very 
large number of new lands in England. In addition to the 
income from this source, the king received the usual feudal 
payments from his tenants-in-chief; that is, from those who 
held their lands directly of him. He had also a share of the 
fines and fees from the courts of the shire and the hundred in 
all cases where the latter had not fallen into the hands of private 
persons ; and he received all the fines and fees imposed by the 
great council, sitting usually three times a year. It was to 
the king's advantage that as many cases as possible should be 
brought before the great council, and we are not surprised that 
the pleas of the crown, that is, cases specially reserved for 
the king or his court, should have largely increased under the 
Normans. William was a famous hunter, and made severe 
forest laws, breaches of which brought in a large revenue. 

Most valuable of all was the money received from the old 
Anglo-Saxon national land-tax, Danegeld, which William will- 
ingly renewed. Three times he levied it, and at the last time 

1 Lee, Nos. 45, 46; Henderson, Documents, pp. 7-8, especially §7. 



1085] DOMESDAY BOOK. 77 

(1083-1084) made it six Norman shillings from each hide of 
land. It was an enormously heavy tax, though many lands 
were exempted from it. That the levy might be fair and sys- 
tematic, he caused a great survey of the kingdom to be made. 
This, the most famous of all William's acts, resulted in the 
drawing up of Domesday Book, than which no single source of 
information for English history is more important. 

56. Domesday Book.^ — In 1085 William held a meeting of 
his councillors at Gloucester. As a result, commissioners were 
sent out into the shires to get information upon which to base 
the levying of the tax. The commissioners were instructed to 
go to each shire or county town and to summon before them 
the chief men of the shire, certain sworn freemen of each hun- 
dred, and villagers from each vill in the hundred — all for the 
purpose of answering questions. This method of inquiry was 
new to England. It had probably never been employed by 
the Anglo-Saxons, but was introduced by the Normans. Such 
an inquiry was called an inquest, and out of it two centuries 
later developed trial by jury.^ The commissioners, remaining 
in the shire town, get all the information they could about the 
lands. They asked by whom the lands were held, how many 
hides there were to be taxed, what lands (as, for example, some 
of the old crown lands) were exempt from taxation, how many 
villeins there were, how many cattle, how many ploughs, and 
the like. They made the inquiry hundred by hundred and 
vill by vill. 

When all had been finished and written down in Latin, 
the record was sent to the king at Westminster. There the 

1 Round, Feudal England, pp. 1-8 ; Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, 
pp. 1-26 ; Lee, No. 48 ; Colby, No. 15 ; Adams and Stephens, Nos. 3, 4 ; Transla- 
tions and Reprints, Vol. II, No. 1 (Cheyney, "English Towns and Gilds"), 
pp. 2-5 ; Henderson, Documents, p. 76. 

2 I have made no effort to trace the history of trial by jury and the evolution 
of the modern procedure, a difficult and intricate matter. But the reader may 
be referred to Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law (2d ed.). Vol. 
II, pp. 598-656 ; Thayer, A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common 
Law, Part I, 1896; Haskins, Norman Institutions (1918). 



78 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1070 

returns were entirely rearranged ; the items were separated 
and set down, not as originally by hundreds and vills, but 
under the names of the tenants-in-chief who held the lands 
within each shire. The final form in which Domesday Book 
has come down to us is not geographical, but feudal. Thus it 
is clear that this book, though it throws a great deal of light 
upon local customs and local law, is a tax book, designed for 
the purpose of increasing the revenue of the king. But it is 
more. In its original form it is a witness to the continued 
existence of the old Saxon local institutions, the shire, the 
hundred, and the vill; while in its final form, though still pre- 
serving the division into shires, it emphasizes the new system 
of feudal tenures introduced by the Conqueror. 

57. William and the Church. — The Norman Conquest affected 
the life of the church as well as of the state. The Anglo- 
Saxon church, though recognizing the superior jurisdiction of 
the Holy See, had been accustomed to manage its own affairs 
in its own councils and synods, and had preserved intact its 
national character. William had come to England with the 
blessing of the pope, and was morally bound not only to aid in 
elevating the church, but also to bring it more directly under 
the authority of the papacy. He began by removing the 
Anglo-Saxon bishops and replacing them with others from the 
Continent, trained in the ways of the Eoman church and de- 
voted to pope and king. Stigand was deposed, and Lanfranc 
made archbishop of Canterbury ; and when a few years later 
the archbishop of York died, Thomas of Bayeux was given his 
place, and his diocese was made subordinate to that of Canter- 
bury. This act, by making Lanfranc the sole head of the Eng- 
lish church, strengthened the ecclesiastical unity of England.^ 

Lanfranc, the right-hand man of William the Conqueror, 
was not only a great theologian and a great disciplinarian, 
but he was also trained in law. He came to England ready 
to organize the church and to enforce many of the Cluniac 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. 13. 



1080] WILLIAM AND THE CHURCH. 79 

reforms, which Dunstan had tried to introduce. He and 
William worked heartily together. Lanfranc imposed celibacy 
upon the clergy, substituted, whenever the opportunity arose, 
the regular clergy (the monks) for the secular clergy (the 
priests), and encouraged the coming of monastic orders into 
England. He found many of the sees located in villages and 
small towns and caused them to be removed to the cities, where 
the bishop might enjoy the benefits of urban life. 

Lanfranc took another and more important step. He wished 
to make the church independent of the state organization, and 
to that end persuaded the king to issue an ordinance which 
had a very important effect upon the later history of the 
English church. We can understand this ordinance when we 
remember that in Anglo-Saxon times there were no separate 
ecclesiastical courts, but that the bishops sat with the ealdor- 
men in the shiremot, where ecclesiastical as well as civil cases 
were heard. William's ordinance said that hereafter bishops 
and archdeacons were to deal, in courts of their own, with such 
ecclesiastical cases as had hitherto . come before the hundred 
court ; and that, too, not according to local custom or the law 
of the hundred, but according to canon and episcopal laws. 
Here we see the result of Lanfranc's legal training. The Eng- 
lish church was thenceforth to have separate courts and to be 
governed by canon or church law, while the clergy were to 
become a distinct order by themselves.^ 

But William was not willing that either church or pope 
should limit his own power as king of England and of English- 
men. He refused to do homage to Gregory VII.^ Though he 
continued the old Anglo-Saxon payment to Kome of a penny 
on every hearth (Peter's pence), he forbade that any one in his 
kingdom should acknowledge a new pope or should receive any 

1 Lee, No. 52; Gee and Hardy, No. XVI; Adams and Stephens, No. 1; 
Henderson, Documents, p. 9. The ordinance says nothing of the shire courts. 
The bishops continued to sit there certainly till 1108. 

2 Letter of William I (1079?) to Gregory VII, Lee, No. 50; Gee and Hardy, 
No. XV. A letter of Gregory's written in 1080 is given in Colby, No. 14. 



80 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1060 

papal letters without his consent. He would not allow the 
English clergy in their separate convocation to decide anything 
unless he agreed to it, and he would not suffer the church to try 
publicly or to excommunicate any of his barons or officers without 
first referring the matter to him.^ Thus even while he strength- 
ened the papal authority he kept it well under control, and him- 
self regulated ecclesiastical affairs within his own dominion. 

58. General Character of the Norman Conquest. — The Nor- 
man Conquest marks the introduction into England of new 
ideas and practices in land tenure, military service, govern- 
ment, and church organization, due in large part to the 
personal influence of the Conqueror and his advisers. But in- 
directly it brought about changes that were social and economic 
as well. The introduction of a new land law and military ser- 
vice created a feudal hierarchy, extending from the king at the 
top, through the earls and barons, to the knight at the bottom, 
each man holding his land of some one above him. Whereas 
in Anglo-Saxon times there had been only two or occasionally 
three persons between the king and the land, in Norman times 
the number sometimes rose to eight or nine.^ Thus what is 
called the " feudal structure " became more elaborate and 
weighty. The social arrangement of Anglo-Saxon times was 
changed, and a separation began between the upper and the 
lower classes, which was to continue for four centuries. 

The effect of the Conquest upon the condition of those below 
the feudal class, that is, the inhabitants of the vills, was equally 
marked.^ The introduction of feudal tenure, and the heavy 
taxes which William imposed, decreased the number of small, 
independent holdings, led to the formation of great manorial 
estates, and brought many free and lordless villages under the 
control of Norman lords. More villagers than ever, those on lay 

1 Lee, No. 51; Gee and Hardy, No. XVII. 

^Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV, No. 3 (Cheyney, "Documents Illus- 
trative of Feudalism"), pp. 21-22. 

8 For contemporary, or nearly contemporary, opinion of William and the 
Normans, see Lee, Nos. 46, 47 ; Colby, Nos. 13, 16 ; and Kendall, Nos. 14, 15, 16. 



1087] WILLIAM II. 81 

as well as those on ecclesiastical estates, were forced to perform 
services, to make payments to, their lords, to be bound to the soil, 
— that is, to become what we know as villeins. This process 
was not complete until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 

The Norman Conquest brought England, the English people, 
and the English church out of isolation into the current of Con- 
tinental life. It introduced symmetry, simplicity, and consoli- 
dation into English government and law. It brought into con- 
flict on English soil two rival peoples, differing in language 
and customs, the fusion of whom was not to be effected for a 
century and a half. It hastened the depression of the peas- 
antry, and worked hardship for great masses of the popula- 
tion. And, lastly, the possession of Normandy and of other 
Frankish fiefs, which were acquired later and which the 
English kings held as vassals of the French king, brought 
upon England some of the evils of Frankish feudalism. The 
Conquest was bad as well as good for England ; but the harm 
was only temporary, the good permanent. 

59. William II. — Had the Norman kings been able to hand 
on the crown without dispute from father to son, as the French 
kings were doing, the history of the English monarchy might 
have been different. But the weakness of the Normans lay in a 
disputed succession and in the quarrels to which it gave rise, and 
of this weakness the people of England were to take full advan- 
tage in their struggle to check the growing power of their kings. 

William the Conqueror, at his death in 1087, left Normandy 
to his eldest son, Eobert. To his second son, William, called 
K-ufus,he left the English crown ; and to his third son, Henry, 
he left a hoard of money. William Rufus, fearing an uprising 
of the Norman barons in favor of Robert, threw himself on the 
support of the English, and with the aid of Lanfranc, obtained 
a legal election in 1087. In return, he promised better laws 
and lighter taxes. But after Lanfranc's death, in 1089, he 
forgot his coronation oath and gave way to his evil passions. 
With Ranulf Flambard as his minister, he employed every 
device to obtain money, exercising mercilessly his feudal rights, 



82 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 



[1100 



and demanding exorbitant payments.^ He also kept vacant 
the see of Canterbury, and took the revenues himself for four 
years. Finally, in 1093, falling sick, he repented, and appointed 
as arclibishop the saintly Anselm, who had been Lanfranc's 
successor at Bee. But recovering, he again forgot his oath, 

and continued his evil course. 
The burden of his feudal 
exactions fell chiefly upon the 
holders of great estates, who 
were in the main of Norman 
stock ; while his tampering 
with the management of the 
local courts, the buying and 
selling of justice, and the 
pardoning of criminals for a 
bribe, caused great hardship 
among the masses of the 
people, the native English. 
The great landholders, in 
their turn seeking from their 
tenantry reimbursement for 
their losses, increased the 
popular distress. No one 
mourned when, in 1100, William was killed while hunting in 
the New Forest, which his father had created.^ 




William Rufus. 

From Vertue's engraving, 
based apparently on the rude 
coin-portraits of his reign. 



1 Lee, No. 54. 

2 The death of William Rufus in the New Forest was looked upon by the old 
chroniclers as a judgment of heaven because William the Conqueror in creat- 
ing the Forest " had reduced a flourishing district to make room for the deer." 
Efforts have been made to show that the chroniclers exaggerated the suffering 
wrought by the Conqueror, and even Freeman believed that the account was 
overdrawn (Norman Conquest, Yo\. IV, 2d ed., pp. 858-859). But Mr. Baring 
has shown that the story is substantially true. He demonstrates from a careful 
study of the evidence of Domesday Book that the Forest must have covered 
more than one hundred thousand acres, of which seventy-five thousand was 
woodland and had never been inhabited. From the remainder, however, 
William cleared at least twenty villages and a dozen hamlets, and drove out 
at least two thousand men, women, and children. It is not improbable that 



1100] 



CHARTER OF HENRY I. 



83 



60. Henry I. — The reign of William Eufus was for the 
barons and the church an experience which stood them in 
good stead when Henry, the third son of William the Con- 
queror, came to the throne. In order to forestall the claims of 
his elder brother, Robert, Henry hastened to London and de- 
manded the crown. After some opposition, he was elected 
king, August 5, 1100. Then, 
in order to strengthen his 
position, he wrote a letter 
to Anselm, who had fled 
from William Rufus in 1097, 
calling him back to Eng- 
land.^ At the same time 
he promised to respect the 
laws of Eadward the Con- 
fessor,^ and most important 
of all, issued a charter of 
liberties ^ from which we 
can obtain a pretty clear 
idea of the evil practices of 
William Rufus. 

King Henry bound him- 
self to respect the freedom of the church and to leave un- 
molested church revenues during a vacancy; to exact reason- 
able and just feudal dues ; to establish peace and the laws of 
Eadward in the kingdom ; and he demanded that his barons 




Henry I. 

From engraviiifj based on 
coiu-portrait of the king. 



the actual number of those evicted was greater; it certainly was not less 
(E. H. R., 1901, pp. 436-437). 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. XVHI. 

2 This promise of Henry I, and similar promises of his successors, led law 
writers and antiquarians of the time to try to find out what the early laws 
were. Latin versions of these laws were written between 1108 and the end of 
the century for this purpose, and called by such titles as The Laws of Henry I, 
The Laws of Eadward the Confessor, The Laws of William the Conqueror, 
which were largely compilations by the antiquarians themselves. 

3 Lee, No. 55; Colby, No. 19; Adams and Stephens, No. 7; Translations 
and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6 (Chejmey, " English Constitutional Documents"), 
p. 4; Kendall, No. 17. 



84 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1100 

should treat their vassals as he was treating them. He im- 
prisoned Eanulf Flambard, whom Rufus had made bishop of 
Durham ; and in order to bind the English more closely to 
him, married Edyth, whom the Normans called Matilda, 
daughter of Malcolm of Scotland, the youngest and the last 
of the house of Alfred. 

61. Henry and Normandy. — During the first nine years of 
his reign, Henry had great trouble because of Normandy. His 
elder brother, Eobert, returned in 1100 from the First Crusade, 
and was welcomed by a considerable party of Norman lords 
who supported his claim to the throne. Ranulf Flambard, 
whose evil influence had not yet ended, escaped in February, 
1101, and fleeing to Normandy, urged the earl to invade 
England. The opposition to Henry was a powerful one. In 
France, Louis VI, the first king to create a strong French 
monarchy, aided Robert, hoping to weaken the Norman house 
by encouraging war between its leading members. In Eng- 
land, Robert of Belesme was prepared to give help. 

But Henry acted with characteristic energy and was aided 
by his English as well as by his Norman followers. With a 
bribe of three thousand marks a year, he bought off Robert, 
who had already shown his eagerness for money by mortgag- 
ing his fief to William Rufus in 1096. He struck down the 
powerful Robert of Belesme in 1101 and drove him from the 
kingdom. By this act he became master at home. He then 
crossed the channel in 1104 and subdued " almost all the castles 
and the chief men" in the land of Normandy. Finally, on 
September 25, 1106, he won the battle of Tinchebrai against his 
brother, who had renewed the conflict, and Robert of Belesme, 
who had spent his time in Normandy stirring up strife. Henry 
became master of Normandy on the anniversary of Stamford 
Bridge, fought by Harold forty years before. The struggle 
bound more closely Norman king and English people, and pro- 
moted that unity which was to make of two peoples oue nation. 

62. The Investiture Struggle. — While Henry was warring 
with the feudal lords, a new and important issue was arising 



1107] 



THE INVESTITURE STRUGGLE. 85 



with the church. This issue was not peculiar to England, but 
was part of a great Continental movement, which had its 
origin in the efforts made by a series of popes, of whom the 
greatest was Gregory VII (1073-1085), to reform the church, 
to separate it from secular control, and to make its authority 
universally recognized in temporal as well as in spiritual 
affairs.^ England had already felt in the days of Dunstan the 
early effects of this movement; Lanfranc had continued the 
work under William the Conqueror ; and now Anselm was to 
stand forward as the powerful representative of the position 
that the popes were taking. Eor three centuries lay lords 
(emperors, kings, and feudal barons) had been accustomed to 
invest archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastics, who were 
at the same time their feudal vassals, not only with their lands 
but also with the ring and the staff, symbols of their spiritual 
office. Gregory VII determined to put an end to this en- 
croachment on the rights of the church, and entered into a 
bitter struggle with the emperor of the Holy Eoman Empire, 
Henry IV.^ This struggle, which is one of the most dramatic 
events of the Middle Ages, was not ended on the Continent 
until 1122, when Henry V and Calixtus II agreed on a com- 
promise called the Concordat of Worms. 

Anselm had asserted the independence of the church during 
the reign of William Rufus, when he refused to receive the 
pallium,^ a spiritual symbol, from the hands of the king. 
Because of the quarrel that followed, Anselm fled from Eng- 
land in 1097. Soon after his return, in accordance with in- 
structions from Rome, he renewed the struggle over the 
question of investiture with the ring and the staff. From 
1102 to 1107 the archbishop refused to recognize the king's 



1 Robinson, Introduction to the History of Western Europe, Chap. XVI. 

2Emerton, Medixval Europe, Chaps. VII-VIII; Henderson, Documents, 
pp. 365-409; Bryce, Hobj Roman Empire, Chap. VII. 

3 The pallium is a band of white lamb's wool, embroidered with black 
crosses, and with two pendants attached. It is the chief badge of the arch- 
bishop's authority and is granted only by the pope. 



86 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1107 

right of investiture, and twice, in 1102 and 1103, was exiled 
from England because he would not do homage and receive 
investiture for his see. But king and archbishop were not 
enemies, and there were reasons on each side why a compro- 
mise should be effected. Henry was involved in war with 
his brother and wanted the aid of Anselm and the English 
people ; the pope, Paschal, was in the thick of his quarrel with 
the emperor Henry V, who had married King Henry's only 
legitimate daughter, Matilda, and did not care to force Anselm 
to take extreme measures. So a compromise was reached : the 
king gave up the right of investiture with ring and staff, and 
Anselm agreed that bishops should do homage to the king for 
the lands that they held.^ The rapidity and ease with which 
this result was obtained, as contrasted with the bitterness of 
the Continental strife, shows us the greater harmony existing 
in England between the king and the church. The resist- 
ance of Anselm showed Henry that, though an absolute king 
in claim, he was in reality already limited by the freedom of 
the church and the independence of his people. 

63. Administration under Henry. — Henry made few changes 
in matters of administration ; and government under him was 
about the same as it had been under William the Conqueror. 
In central administration the justiciar now became, however, a 
permanent officer, and out of the great council a small coun- 
cil of barons was created for financial and judicial purposes. 
When dealing with finances this body took the name of the 
Exchequer, and sat twice a year, at Easter and Michaelmas; 
when rendering justice it was called the curia regis, or king's 
court. This court dealt with important cases only and left 
smaller matters entirely in the hands of the local courts, which 
Henry ordered to be held as in the days of King Eadward. 
At times the king sent one or more of the members of this 
Exchequer and king's court into the counties to look after the 
revenues and to hear the pleas of the crown. But very little 

1 Lee, No. 57 ; Gee and Hardy, No. XX. 



1135] 



STEPHEN'S CLAIM TO THE THRONE. 



87 



had been done as yet to 
centralize justice. What 
Henry did simply pre- 
pared the way for. the 
greater work of the sec- 
ond Henry. 

64. Stephen's Claim to 
the Throne. — Henry died 
in 1135 without a legiti- 
mate male heir to succeed 
him. His sons had been 
lost in the sinking of the 
"White Ship" in 1120/ 
and a second marriage 
soon after had not brought 
him the desired heir. In 
1126 he had called his 
widowed daughter, Ma- 
tilda, back to England and 
had secured her recogni- 
tion by the barons as heir 
to the throne. Matilda, 
therefore, based her right 



1 Colby, No. 20. 

2 The genealogy reads as fol- 
lows : — 

Henricus primus genuit — 
Wilhelmum qui periit iu marl 
— Ricardum qui periit in mari — 
Matildam Imperatricem — ma- 
trem — Ricardi qui obiit — Hen- 
rici Regis Secundi, 

Henry First begot — William 
v)ho perished in the sea — Rich- 
ard who perished in the sea — 
Matilda the Empress — m,other 
— of Richard who died — {and) 
of Henry Second king. 




^m^wax^U' 




Loss OF THE White Ship. 
From an illuminated manuscript.2 



88 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1135 

to the throne on her descent and on the oaths sworn by the 
barons. 

Her claim was strenuously disputed by Stephen of Blois, 
Count of Boulogne, who was the son of Adela, daughter of 
William the Conqueror, and therefore nephew of Henry I. 
Stephen, being near at hand, at Boulogne, hastened in 1135 to 
England. There the people and the barons, reluctant to see 
a woman on the throne of England, accepted him as king. 
Stephen was informally elected at London, and then, after seiz- 
ing the royal castle and treasury at Winchester, returned to 
London to be crowned at the hands of the church. Matilda 
in despair appealed to Rome early in 1136; but the pope, 
influenced by legates sent by Stephen to support his cause, 
despatched a letter to Stephen, confirming him in the posses- 
sion of his kingdom. Thus Stephen based his title to the 
throne upon election and coronation, and upon his confirma- 
tion by the pope. In return he confirmed the good laws 
and customs of his uncle, and of Eadward the Confessor,^ 
and in a second charter promised to respect the liberty of 
the church.^ 

65. Civil War between Stephen and Matilda : First Period. — 
The struggle that followed between the two claimants to 
the crown is the nearest approach that we have in English 
history to the feudal anarchy which had prevailed in France. 
For eighteen years England became a battle-ground for feudal 
lords who viewed Stephen as a king suffered to rule while 
his treasure lasted or he maintained their feudal interests. 
As long as Stephen kept his oath to the people, the church, 
and the lords, so long would they support him, but no longer. 
We are not surprised, therefore, in the war which followed, 
that the great lords were ready to go from one side to the 
other as they pleased, and to follow the party that would 
offer them the greatest rewards. 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 10. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No, 11 ; Gee and Hardy, No. XXII. 



1141] CIVIL WAR BETWEEN STEPHEN AND MATILDA. 89 

The war may be divided into two parts : the first extending 
to the defeat of Stephen in 1141, and the second to the treaty 
of Wallingford in 1154. After Stephen had spent the treasure 
of his uncle, and it became evident that he could not keep all 
his promises, discontent increased, and the cause of Matilda 
became the rally ing-point of the enemies of the king. In 1138 
David, king of the Scots, Matilda's uncle, to whose reign may 
be traced the beginnings of a united Scotland, invaded Eng- 
land. Stephen was engaged in a struggle in the south with 
Robert of Gloucester, Matilda's half-brother, and it was left 
to the men of Yorkshire to meet the invader. This they did 
in the battle of the Standard (1138), where, rallying about 
the banners of their northern churches, they drove back the 
Scots with great slaughter. Stephen, strengthened by this 
victory, struggled against the rapidly growing rebellion in the 
south, where one after another the Norman earls were uniting 
against him. 

Stephen was brave but without resources, and his condi- 
tion drove him to desperation. He debased the coinage, im- 
ported mercenaries, and raised up new earls, such as Geoffrey 
de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, to aid him. Surrounded by 
danger, he even suspected the clergy, and in 1139 arrested 
Roger of Salisbury, chancellor of England, and the latter's 
nephews, Nigel, bishop of Ely, and Alexander, bishop of 
Lincoln, his own supporters and ministers. Thus Stephen 
completed the alienation of lords and clergy at the very mo- 
ment when Matilda, arriving in England for the first time, 
placed herself at the head of her own cause. Stephen was 
defeated and captured at the battle of Lincoln in 1141, and 
Matilda was chosen Lady of England (Anglonim domina, a 
feudal title), by the barons, April 7-8, 1141. They did not, 
however, succeed in crowning her queen at Westminster, as in 
all probability they had intended to do. 

66. Second Period of the Struggle. — The great barons strug- 
gling for power now began to quarrel with one another, and 
feudal anarchy broke loose. The building of castles, which had 



90 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 



[1143 



begun with the Norman Conquest, went on with great rapidity 
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle pictures graphically the misery of 
the land.^ Some men were beaten and tortured, others died of 
hunger; towns were plundered and burnt, churches destroyed, 
monks and priests robbed. " The earth bare no corn . . . and it 
was openly said that Christ and his saints slept.'' But Stephen's 
degradation was short. His queen was able to raise reenforce- 
ments in Kent, took Robert of Gloucester prisoner, and effected 

by exchange the release of 
the king. Matilda, who by 
her haughtiness had offended 
her followers, could gain no 
new support. Her old allies 
died, Miles of Hereford in 
1143, Eobert of Gloucester in 
1147. Then at last she her- 
self, despairing of further 
success, withdrew from the 
struggle and retired to the 
Continent. 

Stephen reigned for five 
years in comparative peace. 
But Matilda's cause was 
not lost. Her son Henry, 
son of her second husband, 
Geoffrey of Anjou, had visited 
England once in 1142, and remained four years. He returned 
in 1149 to renew the struggle for his mother, but met with little 
success. After his return to France in 1150 his power vastly 
increased. He was invested with Normandy by his mother in 
1151, and soon after by the death of his father received Anjou, 
Touraine, and Maine. In 1152 he married Eleanor of Aqui- 
taine, whom Louis VII of France had foolishly divorced, and 
received as her dowry the duchy of Aquitaine. Thus he was 




Stephen. 

From Vertue's engraving, 
based apparently on the rude 
coin-portraits of his reign. 



1 Colby, No. 21 ; Kendall, No. 18. 



1154] TREATY OF WALLINGFORD. 91 

the most powerful feudal lord in France, when in 1153 he 
prepared to take final issue with Stephen in a struggle for 
the English crown. 

67. Treaty of Wallingford. — Henry landed in England in 
June, 1153, and civil war again seemed imminent. But the 
barons were unwilling to resort to arms. In the eighteen years 
that had passed since the struggle began a new generation of 
men had arisen. Normans and English had become fused into 
one people, and a strong desire for peace everywhere prevailed. 
Eustace, the son of Stephen, died in 1153, and the way was 
thus prepared for a peaceful settlement. At Wallingford ne- 
gotiations were begun and the treaty finally signed in 1154. 
Stephen adopted Henry as his heir, and Henry in his turn 
recognized the right of Stephen to reign peacefully as long as 
he lived. This compact was maintained. Stephen remained 
king of England till his death in October, 1154, and Henry 
was crowned at Winchester the December following. 

68. Results of Stephen's Reign. — The reign of Stephen, 
though outwardly a time of war and chaos, was in some re- 
spects marked by a steady development. The two peoples, 
Normans and English, suffering the same miseries, fighting 
the same battles, Normans often leading English levies and 
English knights following Norman lords, were becoming one. 
The church in England, as on the Continent, was not only 
maintaining her independence, but also was advancing her 
claims to control the election of the king and to interfere 
in temporal affairs. The towns, engaging in commerce and 
thereby growing in wealth and power, were becoming places 
of refuge for the oppressed and objects of interest to future 
kings who desired to increase the wealth of the kingdom. 
Most important of all, the evils of an unrestrained feudalism, 
the rise to prominence of new and more lawless feudal lords, 
and the steady descent of the villager class into a deeper serf- 
dom, taught men severe lessons and made them more eager to 
accept the rule of a strong king, despotic though he might be. 
On this account the English welcomed the coming of Henry II 



92 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1154 

and supported loyally his projects for the elevation of monarchy 
and the reduction of the powers of feudalism. 



References for Chapter V. — Freeman in his Norman Conquest 
and William Eufus (1882) has covered the ground from the point of view 
of the chroniclers. Hunt's Norman Britain (1884) is a capital piece of 
work. Maitland, in Domesday Book and Beyond^ Essay I, views the 
Conquest as a ' red thread ' dividing into two parts the legal and economic 
history of England. Round in Geoffrey de Mandeville (1892), Feudal 
England (1895), and The Commune of London (1899), has used a class 
of documentary material — charters, deeds, rolls, and the like — wholly 
different from that employed by Freeman and has displayed masterly skill 
in correcting older statements and reaching new conclusions. Green's 
Conquest of England continues to 1071, Ramsay's Foundations of Eng- 
land to 1154, Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law (2d ed. 
1899) begins with this period. Stephens in A History of the English 
Churchy Vol. II, carries the subject to 1272. Stubbs's Constitutional His- 
tory still continues to be the great authority, and the first two chapters of 
his The Early Plantagenets (1891) furnish an excellent resume. 

For the institutional and social life of the period see Adams's Origins 
of the English Constitution (2d ed. 1920) and his volume in the Political 
History of England (Vol. Ill, 1905), Haskins's Normans in European 
History (1915) and Norman Institutions (1918) and Vinogradov's English 
Society in the Eleventh Century (1908) . Some of the best work that has been 
done in the institutional and economic life of this period and subsequent 
periods is to be found in articles and monographs to which reference can- 
not be made here. For example, the chapters on Domesday Book and 
kindred documents by Round and others in the Victoria History of 
the Counties of England are the most important contributions that have 
been made to the subject. For ancient Ireland mention may be made of 
Clerigh's The History of Ireland to the Coming of Henry II (1908). 



CHAPTER VI. 

HENRY II AND HIS SONS. 

69. Henry II restores Peace. — Henry II was more than 
king of England : he was feudal lord of half of France, and 
was connected, by blood or marriage, with the chief princes 
of Europe. During the thirty-live years of his reign he spent 
all together but thirteen in England, and was never there for 
more than two years and a half at a time. The centre of his 
activity was France, where he was maintaining his feudal 
claims, though he never failed to recognize the prime impor- 
tance of his English kingdom.^ He was a man of unbounded 
activity, a clear-headed statesman and lawgiver, and an 
ambitious ruler. He was, it is true, rash, intemperate, and 
licentious, but his private excesses interfered little with his 
political ambitions. He chose excellent councillors and was 
always ready to accept advice.^ 

In the treaty of Wallingford, Henry had promised to set the 
kingdom right again, and as soon as he was crowned, began to 
restore order and peace. He issued a very brief charter con- 
firming the charter of Henry I,^ and at the same time began 
a series of important reforms. He drove the Flemish merce- 
naries out of England, ordered that all illegal castles should 
be razed to the ground, and took steps to recover the royal 
estates that had been given away both by Stephen and Matilda 
in their attempts to gain followers. Such resistance as he met 
with he overcame. The rebellion of Hugh of Mortimer, who 

1 Stubbs, Early Plantagenets, p. 37. f 2 Kendall, No. 19. 

3 Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6 (Cheyney, " English Constitu- 
tional Documents")* p. €• 

93 



94 



HENRY II AND HIS SONS. 



[1166 



held out longest, was suppressed in the summer of 1155, and 
from this time for nearly twenty years no serious rebellion 
occurred„ With England pacified, Henry turned his attention 
to Wales, and after his return from Anjou, in 1157, made an 
attempt to subdue that land. But before he had accomplished 
anything he was called back to France in 1158, and there 

for five years was occu- 
pied in consolidating 
his feudal possessions. 
He settled complicated 
feudal claims, effected 
alliances and marriages 
in the interests of peace, 
and carried on wars 
with those that denied 
his feudal pretensions. 
Little wonder that his 
mind was not always 
on English affairs. 

70. Henry's Adminis- 
tration : Strengthening 
of the Central Govern- 
ment. — Henry's fre- 
quent absences made 
necessary such changes 
in administration as 
would enable the gov- 
ernment to go on with- 
out him. England was 
comparatively small and compact, many of the dangerous 
feudal lords had been slain or had died, and most of the lead- 
ing men sympathized with Henry in his determination to erect 
a strong central government. The king selected laymen as 
his justiciars, Richard de Lucy and E-obert of Leicester, and 
invested them with almost regal power. Under them the same 
officers existed as in the days of Henry I. The small board 




Henry II. 
From Vertue's engraving, based on 
an eflSgy of the king at Fontevrault 
in Anjou, where he was buried. 



U56] HENRY'S ADMINISTRATION. 95 

of barons, called the Exchequer when performing financial 
duties, and the king's court (curia regis) when exercising 
judicial functions, continued their semi-annual meetings. But 
the treasurer of the Exchequer now became permanent, and 
under him was organized a staff of expert clerks, who did 
the routine work and remained at Westminster for a much 
longer time than did the barons. To this permanent board 
the sheriffs brought the revenues from each shire, which 
included the revenues from the royal estates, the proceeds 
from fines, the Danegeld when levied, and the money arising 
from marriages, wardships, aids, and other feudal dues. 

Under Henry II the sheriff became the most important of 
those officials in the kingdom that had to do with local admin- 
istration. He was always appointed by the king, and was 
generally one of the great lords of the shire whose revenues he 
collected and in whose court he sat. There were reasons why 
he might easily become dangerous to the king. Personally 
he was possessed of great estates within the district he admin- 
istered ; while as sheriff he was invested by the king with 
great authority, often obtained the control of more than one shire, 
and, in some instances at least, succeeded in making his office 
hereditary. He was rapidly becoming a great local autocrat. 

It was in order to place a check upon the sheriffs that 
Henry continued his grandfather's policy of sending occasion- 
ally one or more of his barons of the Exchequer or of the 
king's court into the shires. The duty of these barons was at 
first to watch the sheriffs to see that the lands were justly 
assessed and the revenues collected, and to hear those few 
cases that the king would not allow to be settled in the local 
courts.^ Thus in matters of finance and justice the king was 
beginning to increase the power of the central authority. In 
so doing he was lessening the power obtained by the feudal 
lords during the anarchy of Stephen's reign. 

1 For a case of this character, see Adams and Stephens, No. 12, and for later 
examples. Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6 (Cheyney, " English Con- 
stitutional Documents"), pp. 24-25. 



96 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1156 

71. Scutage. — To the same end PTenry encouraged a practice 
that had grown up, affecting the most important of the feudal 
obligations, the duty of military service. It will be remem- 
bered that William the Conqueror had required of his tenants- 
in-chief not only personal service, but also a certain number 
of knights for the feudal army. The king's great vassals 
generally got these knights by letting out a portion of the land 
which they held of the king to sub-vassals, on condition that 
the latter follow them when required in the service of the king. 
This sub-letting of land was called subinfeudation, and was 
begun soon after the Conquest. 

But sometimes the great vassals were not able or did not 
wish to subinfeudate enough land to meet their obligation to 
the king, and had to hire extra knights to make up the number 
required of them. This practice of hiring soldiers led many 
of the knights, who held land of a tenant-in-chief on condition 
of military service, to desire to commute that service for a 
money payment to be made directly to the king. The money 
thus paid by the knight in lieu of military service was called 
saitage. Such payment was wholly contrary to feudal princi- 
ple, which demanded in every case a personal service, and it is 
interesting to note that the tenants-in-chief themselves were 
never allowed to pay scutage, but were always compelled to 
serve, or, in case of refusal, to pay a heavy fine. 

However, the king favored the payment by the knights be- 
cause the feudal army could not be compelled to serve for more 
than forty days at a time, and was always more or less unre- 
liable. Thus in 1156, on the occasion of the Welsh war, Henry 
II accepted a scutage from the tenants of the ecclesiastical 
lords ; and in 1159, when about to undertake an expedition to 
Toulouse, extended the custom to the tenants of the lay lands 
also. 

The growth of the practice soon altered the character of the 
knights, who henceforth ceased to be soldiers and became 
landowners and farmers, devoting themselves to agriculture 
and to the affairs of the shire and the shire court. Thus 



1162] HENRY'S QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH. 97 

scutage not only broke down the feudal military system, but 
it also led to the rise of a new class of small landowners who 
were to play a very important part in English history as 
knights of the shire. 

At this juncture Henry was interrupted in his work by a 
famous quarrel with the church, which illustrates his determi- 
nation to make the state supreme in ecclesiastical matters also. 

72. Henry's Quarrel with the Church : Thomas a Becket. — 
From 1154 to 1163 Henry had met with no serious obstacles 
in the task of governing England, but in the latter year trouble 
arose with the church in the person of Thomas a Becket. 
Becket was born in 1117, and when twenty-one years of age 
entered the service of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury. 
There he applied himself to the study of canon law, newly 
introduced into England. He rose rapidly in preferment, and 
when Henry II came to the throne, was made chancellor of 
England. In this position he served his king loyally, even 
against the clergy themselves. His life became luxurious. 
He surrounded himself with courtiers, and entertained sumptu- 
ously, drawing his revenues from the numerous benefices that 
he held. He was a minister after the heart of the king.^ 

On the death of Theobald, in 1161, Henry wished to make 
Becket primate of England. Becket resisted, knowing that as 
archbishop he must serve, not the king, but the pope, the head 
of the church. Henry persisted. In 1162 he forced Becket's 
election as archbishop of Canterbury, believing that he would 
find in him as faithful an ally as William I had found in 
Lanfranc. But he made a grievous mistake. No sooner had 
Becket taken the oath of office than his whole life changed. 
He threw off pride and luxury, and became humble and austere, 
giving up his former companions and surrounding himself v/ith 
studious and pious ecclesiastics. The effect of this soon ap- 
peared in his relations with the king. Becket had resigned 
his chancellorship on becoming archbishop, and was now de- 

1 Kendall, No. 20. 



98 



HENRY II AND HIS SONS. 



[1164 



termined to defend at every point the entire independence of 
the clergy.^ 

73. The Constitutions of Clarendon. — The test of the situa- 
tion ^ came when Henry undertook a new reform that touched 

the privileges of the church. 
William I had given the church 
separate ecclesiastical courts in 
which clerks^ only could be tried. 
No matter if a clerk had been 
guilty of most grievous crimes, 
such as murder, robbery, seduction, 
attempts at poison, and the like, 
he could not be tried in the civil 
courts. Too often guilty clerks 
had gone free or suffered no heavier 
punishment than degradation or 
excommunication, the only penal- 
ties that the church could inflict. 
This abuse Henry determined to 
remedy by making clerks subject 
to the royal courts.'* But Becket 
answered that ecclesiastics ought 
to be exempt from all temporal 
justice. His statement was based, 
not on old custom, but on the 
recent claims, that the church was 
everywhere making, of entire inde- 
pendence from the control of the state. Henry, enraged at 




Bronzp: Knockkk. 
This knocker is on the sanctuary- 
door on the north side of the nave 
of the cathedral of Durham. A 
fugitive seeking sanctuary used 
this knocker in order to obtain 
admittance. 



1 Kendall, No. 21. 

2 The Woodstock event, July, 1163, upon which writers have laid much 
stress (as for example, Gardiner, pp. 14^144 ; Lee, No. 58), has been reexam- 
ined by Mr. Round {Feudal England, pp. 497-502) , who declares that the tax 
in dispute was not Danegeld, but sheriff's aid. Though the matter is not 
proven, historians can no longer present Becket on this occasion as a national 
leader resisting a national tax. 

3 "Clerk" was the name for any ecclesiastic of this time, — bishop, priest, 
or deacon. * Lee, No. 59. 



1164] THE CONSTTTUTTONS OF CLARENDON. 99 

Becket's resistance, assembled the court at Clarendon and 
requested Becket to assent to a "recognition of some part 
of the customs, liberties, and dignities of his ancestors.'^ 
Becket not knowing, because no one knew, exactly what these 
customs were, yielded for the sake of peace and promised to 
accept them. Then a commission was appointed to draw up a 
record of these customs. The report of this committee is now 
known as the Constitutions of Clarendon.^ 

Becket was called upon to agree to the following : (1) that 
a clerk accused of a crime should first be summoned before a 
temporal court and there be charged wuth his guilt, that he 
should then be tried, convicted, and degraded in an ecclesiasti- 
cal court, and thus having been unfrocked and become a lay- 
man should be brought back to the temporal court and be given 
a layman's punishment, mutilation or death ; ^ (2) that no one 
should leave the kingdom without the permission of the king or 
without taking oath not to do anything to the injury of the 
king or the kingdom; (3) that none of the king's tenants 
or ministers should be excommunicated or his lands placed 
under interdict without the consent of the king or his justiciar ; 

(4) that an appeal in an ecclesiastical matter should be from 
an archdeacon's court to the bishop's court, then to the arch- 
bishop's court, and finally, not to the pope, but to the king ; 

(5) that archbishops and bishops, who held land of the king, 
should be liable to all the obligations of a secular character 
thereby incurred and should sit in the king's court in all cases 
except such as involved mutilation or death ; (6) that a conse- 
crated church or cemetery, usually a sanctuary for a criminal, 
could not be used to protect goods forfeited to the king. 

Nearly all these clauses simply defined the relations of 

^ Lee, No. 60; Adams and Stephens, No. 13; Gee and Hardy, No. XXIII ; 
Translations and Reprints, Vol, I, No. 6 (Cheyney, " English Constitutional 
Documents "), P- 26; Henderson, Documents, p. 11. 

2 Maitland, " Henry II and the Criminous Clerks," E. H. R., 1892, reprinted 
in Canon Law in the Church of England, pp. 132-147. Also, for a clear state- 
ment of the difficulty, Stephens's History of the English Church, Vol. II, 
p. 168. 



100 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1170 

church and state as they had been in the days of William the 
Conqueror. But the claims of the mediaeval church had 
changed in the interval since William's reign, and Becket, as 
archbishop, could not consent to a return to the old conditions. 
The quarrel between Henry and Becket was due to the fact 
that the former was standing for the customs of his ancestors, 
the latter for the new claims of the church. 

74. Becket's Exile and Death. — Becket, after long considera- 
tion, definitely refused to accept the constitutions, because he 
deemed them to be a code of law binding the church. Henry, 
exceedingly angry, called a council at Northampton, October 
7, 1164, and summoned the archbishop to answer certain 
trumped-up charges concerning his lands and the management 
of the money in his possession when chancellor. After four 
exciting days, Becket fled from England in disguise and entered 
into voluntary exile, destined to last for six years. The pope, 
Alexander, was engaged in a conflict with the emperor, Fred- 
erick Barbarossa, who had set up an anti-pope, and did not 
dare excommunicate Henry, whose daughter had married the 
pope's ally and Frederick's enemy, Henry the Lion. There- 
fore Becket fought the battle almost alone. But he fought 
well. He refused to institute bishops chosen since his depar- 
ture, excommunicated the chief advisers of the king, encour- 
aged Louis VII of France, with whom he found refuge, to war 
against his vassal, the English king, and finally persuaded 
Alexander, victorious over the anti-pope and angered at 
Henry's obstinacy, to threaten England with an interdict 
(1170). 

Henry, yielding in part, became reconciled first with Louis 
VII and then with Becket. The latter returned to England, 
but refused to abandon his aggressive policy. He excom- 
municated the bishops of London and Salisbury, and sus- 
pended the bishop of Durham and the archbishop of York, 
who had dared to crown Henry's son in his absence (1170). 
The bishops fled to Henry, who was in France, and told their 
tale. Henry in angry despair cried out, "Is there no one 



1176] FEUDAL REACTION AGAINST HENRY. 101 

among all the cowards whom I have nourished who will rid 
me of this miserable clerk ? " Unwilling to act illegally, he 
summoned a council, which deemed Becket deserving of death. 

But the matter had already been taken out of his hands. 
Four knights, hearing the king's words, had sought out Becket 
at Canterbury and there murdered him.^ This act raised 
Becket to the place of a martyr and turned the world against 
Henry. With the greatest difficulty, and only after many 
amends, did he turn aside in 1172 the papal excommunica- 
tion. Later, by the concessions of 1176 he practically annulled 
some of the most important of the constitutions of Claren- 
don.^ The long and deep humiliation of the king was but the 
preface to a period of sorrow and trouble which ended with 
his death. 

75. Feudal Reaction against Henry. — The struggle with the 
church brought matters to a head in political affairs also. 
The resistance of Becket was to find its counterpart in an 
attempt of the feudal lords to check the rapidly growing 
power of the king and to recover the position they had had 
under Stephen. 

That such a reaction should take place was natural enough. 
The rise of monarchy both in England and France was 
necessarily accompanied with attempts of the feudal lords 
to regain their privileges and to prevent the centralization of 
power in the hands of the king. The murder of Becket, which 
seemed to be only another act of royal despotism, deepened the 
anger of the English baronage, while the humiliation of the 
king seemed to offer a favorable opportunity for an expression 
of their discontent. Already aroused by the financial and judi- 
cial measures thus far taken, they were still further incensed 
at this time by what appeared to be, and in fact was, a further 
attack upon their prerogatives. Since the Conquest they had 
practically controlled the office of sheriff, but now that was to 



1 Lee, No. 61 ; Colby, No. 23. 

2 Medley, English Constitutional History, pp. 566-567. 



102 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1170 

be taken from them. In 1170, when Henry returned to Eng- 
land, he was greeted with so many complaints of the tyranny 
of the sheriffs that he immediately instituted an inquiry into 
their conduct.^ As a result, he deprived the majority of the 
barons of their positions and placed in their stead men of 
lower rank, who became regular officers of the crown. This 
inquisition of sheriffs not only reduced in importance the office 
itself, but it also broke down the local influence of many a 
wealthy lord who as sheriff had controlled his shire. 

The aggrieved barons found a leader in the king's own house- 
hold. His eldest son, Henry, dissatisfied with the estates 
and the authority allowed him by his father, and aided by his 
mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, headed a revolt, the signal for a 
great uprising of all who had a grievance against the king. 
French lords and English barons, headed by young Henry and 
the king of France, formed a menacing coalition. Even the 
king of Scots, William the Lion, grandson of David I, joined 
the league, and with the bishop of Durham, lord of a powerful 
northern bishopric, itself an independent fief, was preparing 
to invade England. 

Never did Henry's activity and generalship display itself to 
better advantage, and never did the support given by the Eng- 
lish people stand him in better stead. The weakness of the 
opposition lay in its lack of unity. Henry was able to meet 
each movement separately, and to deal with each feudal lord or 
group of lords in turn. First in France, whither he returned in 
1172, he checked the invasion of the Flemish, forced Louis VII 
to a peace, finally defeated the Bretons, became overlord of 
Brittany, and pacified Poitou. In 1174, as the news from Eng- 
land became more alarming, he resolved to cross the Channel. 
There the uprising had been held in check by the king's jus- 
ticiars, and the Scots had been defeated by the Yorkshire levies 
at Alnwick on July 13, 1174, where William the Lion had been 
captured. 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 16. 



1174] 



FEUDAL REACTION AGAINST HENRY. 



103 



The coming of Henry had an immediate effect. On July 25, 
Hugh Bigot, most dangerous of the barons, surrendered ; on the 
31st, Bishop Pudsey of Durham renewed his oath of fealty, 
and dismissing his Flemish mercenaries was let off with a fine 
and the confiscation of some of his castles. William the Lion 
was carried to Falaise in Normandy and there compelled to 
acknowledge himself the vassal of the English king, thus for 

KINGS OF SCOTLAND TO 1290. 
Duncan I 
1034-1040 



Ingibiorg® = 
Margaret (2) = 
Sister of Eadgar 
^theling 

® 



Malcolm III 
Can more (Bighead) 
1057-1093 



(D 



® 



Duncan II 
1094 



Eadgar 
1097-1107 



Alexander I 
1107-1124 



Donald Bane 
1094-1097 



Matilda = 

Henry I 

King of England 



David I 

1124-1153 

i 
Henry 



Malcolm IV (The Maiden) 
1153-1165 



William the Lion 
1165-1214 



David 
Earl of Huntingdon 



Alexander II = Joanna 



1214-1249 



daughter 

of John 

of England 



I 
Margaret = 

Hubert 

de Burgh 



Alexander 111= Margaret 



1249-1286 



Eric of Norway = Margaret 

I 
Margaret 

The Maid of 

Norway 

d. 1290 



daughter of 
Henry III 
of England 



104 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1176 

the moment undoing the attempt of his predecessors to create 
an independent Scottish kingdom. Other lords came to the 
king at Northampton and surrendered their castles into his 
hand. The king dismantled these castles and in so doing 
brought to an end the last serious feudal uprising that was to 
take place in England. 

76. Henry's Great Work for Justice, the Army, and the Fi- 
nances. — With the feudal uprising suppressed, Henry at once 
prepared to go on with his great work of improving local 
methods of justice and of extending the royal authority from 
Westminster out into the shires. Even in 1166, in the midst 
of his troubles with Becket, he had found time to issue an or- 
dinance called the Assize of Clarendon.^ By this assize he had 
instructed his sheriffs, in every case of murder, robbery, and 
theft, to summon the men of the hundred and of the vills near 
which the crime occurred, to make inquiry of them regarding 
it, and to arrest the man whom the villagers accused. This was 
the first application of the inquest to matters of justice, and 
did away with the old method of calling in oath-helpers, com- 
purgators. The accused was then taken by the sheriff before 
the justice whom the king sent from Westminster to hear' 
pleas of the crown in the shires. The abuse of the unusual 
power given to the sheriff by this assize was in part respon- 
sible for Henry's attack on the sheriffs in 1170. 

In 1176 by the Assize of Northampton^ the king revised the 
Assize of Clarendon, omitting all reference to the sheriffs and 
enlarging and defining the powers of the justices of the king, 
who henceforth became the chief representatives of royal jus- 
tice in the local districts. These itinerant justices, travelling on 
circuit through the shires, were to take cognizance of forgery 
and arson, as well as of murder and robbery, and were to make 
inquiry through twelve of the most lawful knights of the 

1 Lee, No. 62; Adams and Stephens, No. 14; Translations and Reprints, 
Vol. I, No. 6 (Cheyney, " English Constitutional Documents "), p. 20; Hender- 
son, Documents, p. 16. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 16. 



1176] HENRY'S GREAT WORK FOR JUSTICE. 105 

hundred, or if knights could not be obtained, thi-ough twelve 
qualified freemen of the hundred and four men from each vill, 
regarding the circumstances of such crimes. 

The matters that the justices were to ask about were not at 
first very exactly defined, and they received new instructions 
each time they set out on the circuit. One of these instruc- 
tions, called the Articles of the Eyre,^ exists for the year 1194, 
and shows that at that time very full powers had been given 
to the justices and that the list of pleas of the crown was grow- 
ing in length.- In these same instructions there appears a new 
officer, — crowner, or coroner, — to be elected in the county court 
from among the knights of the county, whose business it was 
to take care of all persons guilty of offences against the king, 
and to produce them when the justices came into the county. 
It would appear that sometimes the coroners themselves tried 
cases of this character. The appointment of the coroner was 
distinctly a blow at the judicial power of the sheriff.^ 

By the same assize the king took another very important 
step.'* He declared that in all cases where a man's freehold 
property was in danger of seizure by that man's lord, he would 
protect it in the royal courts. He instructed his justices to 
make inquiry, through twelve qualified men, regarding such 
property, and to do justice in all such cases. This extension 
of the king's justice weakened the feudal lord's control over 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 21. 

2 In time these instructions became very definite: the justices were to look 
after breaches of the peace, a duty later intrusted to inferior magistrates 
called justices of the peace (Adams and Stephens, Nos. 77, 124) ; to try all 
criminals, whence arose the court of Gaol Delivery; to hear cases of treason, 
felony, and trespass, whence arose the court of Oyer and Terminer. All civil 
cases, however, had to be tried at Westminster, unless, before {nisi prius) the 
day fixed for the trial, the itinerant justice should come into the county. Out 
of this regulation arose the court of Nisi Prius. See the writ of 1231 in 
Adams and Stephens, No. 31, which gives a clear statement of the duties of 
the justices. See McKechnie, Magna Carta, pp. 326-331. 

8 The best account of the coroner is by Gross, Introduction to Select Coro- 
ners' Rolls, Selden Society Publications, Vol. 9. 
4 See text of the Assize of Northampton, § 4. 



106 



HENRY II AND HIS SONS. 



[1181 



his free tenants ; for after this, every free tenant looked not to 
the lord of whom he held his land, but to the king and the 
king's court. 

A few years later Henry reconstructed the military system. 
He had already weakened the feudal army by encouraging the 
practice of scutage, and as he did not 
like to be dependent on hired soldiers, 
he increased and made more efficient 
the old popular levies. In the Assize 
of Arms of 1181 he demanded that 
every freeman should be armed and 
ready for military service. Knights, 
burghers, and all freeholders were to 
have, always at the service of the king, 
arms and armor according to their 
wealth.^ No one except a freeman 
could serve in the army, Jews were 
forbidden to have arms, and ecclesias- 
tics were exempted. The itinerant 
justices were to summon local juries 
to determine the property of each one 
and to apportion the arms to be pro- 
vided. In so doing they took the 
place of the sheriffs in all matters 
relating to the local militia. Thus 
was created a new fighting force for 
England. 

In 1188 ?i financial step of great moment was taken. The 
summons for the Third Crusade had gone forth, and England 
endeavored to raise money by a special imposition called the 
Saladin tithe.^ Hitherto the only general tax, Danegeld, had 
been laid on land, but now for the first time a tax was laid on 




Armor of the Twelfth 
Century. 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 17 ; Jenks, Edward I, pp. 54-57. The weapons 
were still feudal weapons, and until the introduction of the cross-bow and long- 
bow the militia was very imperfect as a fighting force. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 19. 



1171] HENHY AND IRELAND. 107 

revenues and movable property. In determining the value of 
such property, each man was allowed to state the amount that 
he possessed ; but in case his word was doubted, a jury of 
neighbors was called in to testify. 

In all these particulars — judicial, military, and financial — 
the king was creating a uniform law for England, was extend- 
ing the power of his own officials, and was undermining the 
strength of the feudal lords. And he was doing more: he 
was bringing the central and local institutions more closely 
together, and by using the inquest in all cases where possible, 
was increasing the efficiency of the local administration and 
uniting more firmly crown and people. Henry's reign marks 
a momentous step forward in the organization of the govern- 
ment and administration of the English kingdom. 

77. Henry and Ireland. — In Henry's reign began the at- 
tempt of the English to conquer Ireland and to bring the 
half-civilized Celtic tribes under the authority of the English 
king. These tribes, vexed by the Danes and fighting with 
each other, had led a tumultuous existence for three centuries. 
The right to conquer Ireland had been granted to Henry 
(1155) by Hadrian IV, the only Englishman who ever became 
pope, on the ground that all islands belonged to the juris- 
diction of the papal see,^ a striking instance of the claims of 
the church at this time. Henry was slow to take advantage 
of the grant ; but some of his barons, notably Kichard de Clare, 
known as Strongbow, began the conquest in 1169.^ In 1171 
Henry himself went over, but accomplished very little. His 
chief purpose seems to have been to erect a kingdom for his 
son John, and not, as the pope desired, to introduce Christianity. 
The only result of the attempt was the establishment of a 



1 Henderson, Documents, p. 10. The authenticity of this grant has been the 
subject of much discussion. In defence, see Norgate, " The Bull Laudabiliter," 
E. H. R., 1893, pp. 18-52; in opposition, see Round, Commune of London, 
pp. xi, xii, 170-200. For further references, see Gross, Sources and Literature 
of English Historij, 2d ed. (1915), p. 662, No. 3087. 

2 Colby, No. 22; Kendall, No. 22. 



108 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1183 

claim to the island which was not to be made good for four 
centuries. 

78. Henry's Last Years. — The last years of this great king 
were for him a time of perplexity and sorrow, and the trouble 
came not from England or Ireland, but from France. The 
French kings were doing exactly what Henry was doing — 
building up a strong monarchy and warring against the feudal 
lords. The king of England was the lord of half of France, 
with fiefs extending from the Somme to the Garonne, cutting 
off the French kings from the sea, controlling the mouths of 
the two greatest rivers, the Seine and the Loire, and thus 
preventing all opportunities for commercial expansion. French 
kings were, therefore, always willing to take the side of the 
enemies of the English king, whoever they might be. Louis 
VII had aided Becket, and now Philip II was to take advan- 
tage of the discontent of Henry's sons to urge them to revolt 
against their father. He first aided the eldest son, Henry, in 
1183, and after the latter's death, conspiring with Richard and 
John, stirred up war in which Henry II suffered defeat. 

In the midst of his troubles Henry died, July, 1189. He 
was a great king, victor in the struggle with feudalism in his 
own kingdom ; but when, as a feudal lord himself, he sought to 
maintain his position in the face of the rising French monarchy, 
he was defeated. 

79. Richard, Coeur de Lion (1189-1199). — It was fortunate 
that Henry II had established a firm administration in Eng- 
land before his death, for his sons did little to continue his 
work. Richard was a brave man, but a bad king. His reign 
of ten years was spent almost entirely out of England, either 
in the Holy Land, where he had gone on the Third Crusade, 
in captivity in Germany, or in France warring against Philip 
Augustus. He was a warrior and knight, not a statesman or a 
king. Bold and impetuous, loving great deeds and romantic 
adventures, he was the typical crusader of his day, the knight- 
errant, who was the hero of song and story .^ Reckless with 
his own life, he was cruel in his treatment of others ; and out- 



1193] 



RICHARD'S RANSOM. 



109 



spoken in his hates, he made enemies who were constantly in- 
triguing against him. It was well for England that he paid 
no attention to the government of the kingdom, for he had not a 
trace of the genius of his father, and could 
only have made matters worse had he at- 
tempted to rule. 

On the death of Henry II, Eichard was 
declared king, without opposition, and at 
his coronation ^ promised to defend the 
church, to maintain the rights of his people, 
to eradicate bad laws, and to uphold good 
ones. But these promises were to have no 
fulfilment at his hands. His heart was in 
the crusade for the rescue of Jerusalem, 
and he gave no thought to the needs of the 
English. Immediately after his coronation 
he appointed Bishop Pudsey and William 
Longchamp his justiciars, and began to 
raise money for his expedition. "He de- 
clared offices vacant, and put them up for 
sale to the highest bidder. He agreed, with 
the pope's consent, that those who desired 
should remain at home, provided they paid 
for the privilege. He sold charters to the 
towns, and for ten thousand marks released 
William the Lion from the oath taken at 
the time of the treaty of Falaise. Having 
raised a goodly sum of money, he embarked 
on the crusade, December 11, 1189. During 
the ensuing three years Europe rang with 
his exploits,^ while England, under Long- 
champ, was governed with a firm hand. 

80. Richard's Ransom. — In 1193, on his way home from 
Jerusalem, which he had failed to take, Eichard was captured 




Knight Templar. 

A member of the order 
of Knights Templar, 
showing the chain ar- 
mor of the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries. 



1 Lee, No. 64. 



2 Colby, No. 27. 



110 HENRY 11 AND HIS SONS. 11194. 

by Leopold of Austria and handed over to the emperor Henry 
VI, son of Frederick Barbarossa. This was a great event for 
the emperor, since Richard had been the ally of the Normans 
in Sicily and of the Guelfs in Germany, both of whom at this 
time were endeavoring to overthrow the emperor.^ In April 
the news of the capture reached England, and strenuous efforts 
were made to raise the money that Henry demanded for the 
ransom of the king's person. The justiciars called on every 
one, lay or clerical, to give a fourth part of his revenues for 
that year, and a like portion of his personal property. From 
each knight's fee they demanded twenty shillings as the regular 
aid for the ransom of a lord ; from the Cistercians, the great 
wool-raising monks,^ all their wool for a year ; and from the 
churches all their gold and silver. The total sum finally raised 
was one hundred and fifty thousand marks (a mark = 13s. 4d.), 
an amount twice as large as the whole revenue of the king- 
dom ; and Richard was released in 1194. The news was not 
welcome to Philip Augustus, who informed John that he had 
better look out, for the devil was loose. 

81. Richard, John, and Philip Augustus. — It was high time 
that Richard came back to England. During his absence, 
Longchamp had become exceedingly unpopular, and John, tak- 
ing advantage of the discontent aroused by Richard's methods 
of raising money and by the vigorous rule of Longchamp, 
became the leader of a movement for the purpose of deposing 
the justiciar. This was effected in 1191. Then in 1192 John, 
evidently aiming at the throne, began a vigorous revolt, and 
was aided and abetted by Philip Augustus. The uprising was 
put down in 1194 by Hubert Walter, the new justiciar, and 
Richard's supremacy was assured. The matter was a small 
one, but is of interest as showing the treacherous nature of 



1 For Richard as the ally of the enemies of Honry VI and a factor in Ger- 
man history, see Henderson, A History of Germany in the Middle Ages, Chap. 
XIX ; an excellent account. 

2 On the monks of this time, see Jenks, Edward I, pp. 60-61; also Munro, 
A History of the Middle Ages, Chap. XII, especially p. 129. 



1199] RICHARD, JOHN, AND PHILIP AUGUSTUS. Ill 

John, the persistence of Philip, who had returned from the 
Third Crusade in order to take advantage of Richard's absence, 
and the way in which the barons were learning to war against 
an unpopular official, a training later to be brought into use 
against John himself. 

When Richard returned, in 1194, he had nothing to fear 
from John, and he was in a position to settle scores with Philip 
Augustus for meddling with his affairs. He spent only two 
months in England, selling offices, receiving gifts, and impos- 
ing lines and taxes. In a special set of instructions to his jus- 
tices (1194, see p. 105), he caused a list of old and new crown 
pleas to be drawn up, that inquiry regarding them might be 
made of the men of the shire, hundred, and vill, and that the 
cases might be brought before the itinerant justices. He did 
this in order that the money derived from escheats, fines, feudal 
dues,^ and other sources might be available for his war with 
France. In 1198 he met with his first serious opposition, when 
he demanded of his vassals three hundred knights. Hugh, 
bishop of Lincoln, refused to accede to this demand, on the 
ground that the lands of Lincoln were bound to do military 
service in England only, and not in France. 

With the money he had raised Richard continued his struggle 
with Philip Augustus. He defeated Philip at Fretteval, in 1194, 
driving the French out of Normandy, Touraine, and Maine. In 
1197, allied with the count of Flanders and Otto IV, his nephew, 
the first of the Guelf house to become emperor, he again de- 
feated Philip, at Gisors, in 1198. The French king could make 
no headway against him, and was compelled to abide his time 
in patience. The opportunity came, however, when in 1199 
Richard was mortally wounded on a freebooting expedition into 
Limoges, and gave place to his treacherous and reckless brother. 

The reign of Richard is constitutionally important because 
it shows the strength of the system established by Henry II, 
which continued to work with great efficiency, even though 

1 Lee, No. 65, 



112 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1200 

there was no king in England. It is also significant in that it 
shows that the baronage and the people were learning how to 
act unitedly against a king's oppressive financial policy. This 
experience made easier the revolt that was to follow against the 
disastrous rule of John. 

82. John and the Loss of the French Lands. — John is by com- 
mon repute the worst king that ever ruled in England. Loved 
by his father, who had sought to find for his son a kingdom 
in Ireland, he had deserted Henry at the critical moment and 
gone over to the side of Philip. He proved equally thankless 
to Richard, who had given him control over five shires in Eng- 
land to compensate him for having been left without fiefs at 
his father's death. i His character was base, his temperament 
sensual, and his motives of the lowest sort. He had neither 
the ability of his father nor the heroism of his brother, and 
though he was energetic and resourceful, he lacked sagacity and 
gave way to passionate impulses. A man of this type was no 
match for the patient, cautious, and persistent Philip Augustus. 

Philip was but waiting to drive the Angevins out of France. 
Aiding the younger Henry against Richard, Richard and John 
against their father, and John against Richard, he was now 
ready to wage bitter war with John himself, and to support 
the cause of Arthur, who claimed the English throne as son of 
Geoffrey, John's elder brother. 

For the moment, however, Philip was compelled to wait. 
His kingdom had been placed under interdict by Innocent III 
in 1200,- and he found it wiser to turn away for the moment 
from Arthur and negotiate a treaty with John, at Goulet, in 
that year. The time of waiting was short. John, putting aside 
his English wife, Avice, married on August 80, 1200, Isabella 
of Angouleme, the betrothed of Hugh de la March, his vassal. 
Hugh in anger appealed to Philip, who, as John's superior 
lord, seized this opportunity to obtain a legal sanction for 

1 From this circumstance John received the name of Lackland. 

2 Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV, No. 4 (Howland, " Ordeal, Compur- 
gation, Excommunication, and Interdict "), p. 29. 



of 



through 



1203] JOHN AND THE LOSS OF THE FRENCH LANDS. 113 

an attack on the Angevin lands. Philip summoned John to 
answer for his conduct before a court of the feudal lords. John 
delayed, promised, and again delayed. In 1202 the court, in 
accordance with feudal law, declared him guilty of felony, 
which meant forfeiture of his fiefs in France. Philip now 
took up the cause 
Arthur, who 
his mother was count 
of Brittany. He gave 
to him his daughter in 
marriage and received 
from him homage for 
his county. This was 
an affront to John, who, 
as lord of Normandy, 
claimed the feudal su- 
periority over Brittany 
obtained by Henry II. 
The war that followed 
between John and Ar- 
thur resulted in the cap- 
ture of the latter, July 
31, 1202. At this junc- 
ture Arthur disappears 
from history, probably 
slain by John's own 
hand at Rouen in April, 
1203. The murder of 

Arthur gave Philip the desired opportunity of carrying out the 
judgment of the court of 1202.^ He seized Normandy, Anjou, 




John. 
From Vertue's engravinpr, based on 
the effigy of the king at Worcester. 



1 The older view that Philip summoned a second court in 1203, and caused 
John to be tried for the murder of Arthur, was controverted by Bemont in two 
articles in the Revue Historique, 1886. The question was reopened in 1899 
by Guilhiermoz, in the Bihliotheque de V^cole des Chartes, who defended the 
older view. Answers were made by Petit-Dutaillis and Monod in Revue 
Historique (1899), by Bemont in the Bihliotheque (1899), and by the nestor of 



114 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1207 

Maine, and Touraine, and added these fiefs to the French 
kingdom. Though John, as we shall see, made a desperate 
attempt to recover his lands, the Angevin possessions were 
practically lost to the English kings. 

83. John and the Church. — John now went rapidly from bad 
to worse. His best councillors had died : his mother in 1204, 
Hubert Walter in 1205. Deprived of their wise and restrain- 
ing influence, John forced a quarrel with the church, with 
which his relations had thus far been amicable. The trouble 
concerned a successor to Archbishop Hubert Walter. John 
claimed the right, which certainly had been exercised by his 
predecessors, of naming the archbishop. But the bishops of 
the province of Canterbury asserted that the right was theirs. 
In the meantime the monks of the chapter, desiring to have a 
prelate favorable to them, secretly selected a candidate and 
sent him to Kome for the pallium. In the quandary, Innocent 
III, after a delay of a year and a half (December, 1206), annulled 
the elections of the sub-prior, Reginald, sent by the monks, 
and of John's candidate, John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, 
and caused Stephen Langton to be chosen. Langton was an 
English cardinal residing at Rome, one of the noblest men of 
his time, a wise and learned ecclesiastic, destined to play a 
part little anticipated by the great Innocent. He was con- 
secrated in June, 1207. 

John refused to receive or to recognize the new archbishop, 
and the issue between the pope and the king was sharply de- 
fined. John confiscated the estates of the archbishop, and of 
many of the bishops who supported Langton. Innocent replied 
with a bull, placing England under an interdict.^ Churches 
were closed; the sacraments of marriage and the Eucharist 
were forbidden; extreme unction, burials, and baptisms were 
performed only in private. Fof five years the king remained 

French students of this period, Lucliaire, in Revue Historique (1900). The re- 
sult was a complete victory for Beniont. For a possible explanation of the 
origin of the statement that such a court was held, see below, p. 120. 
1 Lee, No. 67 ; Colby, No. 29; Gee and Hardy, No. XXIV. 



1214] JOHN'S ATTEMPT TO RECOVER FRENCH LANDS. 115 

obstinate. In 1209 Innocent hurled at John an edict of ex- 
communication/ but the king answered the bull by seizing the 
estates of the bishops who published it. In 1212 Innocent 
deposed John and formed a coalition, with Philip Augustus as 
its willing head, to undertake a crusade for the purpose of 
driving John out of England.^ Threatened by an uprising of 
the Welsh and Scots, and terrified by a prophecy that he would 
cease to be king by Ascension Day, John yielded. He gave 
his kingdom to the pope, and received it back as a vassal of 
the Holy See, on the condition that he pay one thousand marks 
a year, receive Langton, and reinstate all deposed bishops.^ 

This humiliating act reconciled John with the church, but it 
only deepened the growing opposition of the English people 
and barons to the king. Such a submission, though at first 
seemingly a victory, in that it brought peace with the church, 
was in reality the precursor of a day of bitter reckoning for 
the king. 

84. John*s Attempt to Recover his French Lands. — John now 
believed that his triumph was at hand. Reconciled with the 
church, he determined to take revenge on Philip, his greatest 
enemy, and if possible recover his lands. He joined a league 
of Philip's enemies, consisting of his own nephew. Otto IV, 
and the counts of Flanders and Boulogne, two great feudal 
lords of France. A decisive battle was fought at Bouvines, 
July 27, 1214, one of the most important battles in the history 
of France, England, and Germany. Philip was victorious, and 
returned to Paris with the great task of establishing French 
monarchy accomplished. Otto IV lost all hope of holding the 
crown of Germany or the empire against the Hohenstaufens 
and the pope; while John, though not actually present at the 
battle, realized that he was hopelessly defeated, and gave up all 
farther attempts to win back his Norman and Angevin territory. 
The battle of Bouvines prepared the way for Magna Carta. 

1 Lee, No. 68. 2 Lee, No. 69. 

8 Lee, Nos. 71, 72, 73; Gee and Hardy, Nos. XXV, XXVI; Adams and 
Stephens, Nos. 25, 28. 



116 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1215 

85. John and the Barons. — England was on the verge of civil 
war. Hitherto the people had sided with the king against the 
feudal lords. But the successes of Henry II had broken up 
the old feudal opposition and a new baronage had arisen, which, 
though still feudal in habits and sympathies, was interested 
not only in the maintenance of its rights as a class, but also in 
good government for all the English people. The heavy exac- 
tions of two such kings as Richard and John had brought mat- 
ters to a crisis, and before the battle of Bouvines the barons 
had shown their determination to resist further despotism on 
the part of the king. When in 1213 John had sought to per- 
suade the barons to go with him to France, those of the north 
refused to serve anywhere out of England. They refused also 
to pay scutage. At a council held at St. Albans the same year, 
the justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, declared in the king's name 
that the laws of Henry I, which John had promised to observe, 
should be put in force. ^ Three weeks later, at a council at 
St. Paul's, the Archbishop, Stephen Langton, presented the 
very charter of Henry I as the basis of the barons' demands. 

The enthusiasm roused by these meetings turned to confi- 
dent determination after John's defeat at Bouvines. Imme- 
diately the archbishop and the barons drew up the " articles 
of the barons," a definite statement of their demands, arid pre- 
sented it to the king. John in hot passion refused to receive 
it. Then an army numbering over two thousand knights, called 
the Army of God and Holy Church, accompanied by the citi- 
zens of London and led by Robert Fitz Walter, marched against 
him. Seeing that church, baronage, and people were prepared 
to gain their demands by force, and deserted by all save the 
mercenaries whom he had brought from France, John, angry 
but helpless, was obliged to yield. At Runnymede on the 
Thames, June 15, 1215, he signed Magna Carta, the great 
charter of EnQ:lish liberties.^ 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 26; Lee, No. 74. 

2 Lee, Nos. 75-79; Colby, No. 30; Kendall, No. 24. 



I 

1 



1215] MAGNA CARTA. 117 

86. Magna Carta.^ — Magna Carta differs from the charters 
of Henry I and Stephen in that it was forced from the king 
against his will. It is, therefore, a treaty between the king on 
one side and the church, baronage, boroughs, and people on the 
other. Its great importance lies not only in the fact that it 
limited what the king could do, but also in the fact that it was 
won by all classes of England acting together. It marks the 
close of one period of English constitutional history, for it 
brings together all the most important practices and privileges 
of clergy, barons, burghers, and people, obtained in one way 
or another since the Norman Conquest. It does not contain 
anything new; it sums up what had been enjoyed and what 
needed to be restated on account of the excesses of Richard 
and John. Though the welfare of all classes is touched upon 
in Magna Carta, yet the larger portion of it relates to the privi- 
leges of the feudal lords ; for, as must never be forgotten, the 
England of Magna Carta is feudal England, and the document 
itself is a feudal document. 

First, the church was to be free and its rights and privileges 
were to be unimpaired. This concession made trouble later 
when a difference of opinion arose as to what these rights 
were, inasmuch as the church in the Middle Ages had a way 
of increasing its demands. 

In the second place. Magna Carta, by defining in exact 
terms feudal customs, rendered further abuse of them diffi- 
cult. It regulated matters of wardship, heirship, widowhood, 
and marriage, and fixed the amount of feudal dues.^ More 
important still, for John had been making heavy demands, it 
said that no scutage or aid should be levied save by the council 
of the realm, and that on three occasions only should a lord 
ask for aids from his vassal: namely, when his eldest son 
was to be knighted, when his own person was to be ransomed 

1 Lee, No. 80; Adams and Stephens, No. 29; Translations and Reprints, 
Vol. I, No. 6 (Cheyney, "English Constitutional Documents"), p. 7. 

2 For illustrations of what these were, see Translations and Reprints, Vol. 
IV, No. 3 (Cheyney, " Documents Illustrative of Feudalism "), pp. 24-28. 



118 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1216 

-T-T" — " — ~ ' " ' ; ~"~™ " '^ " ^ 

NuUus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut dissaisiatur, aut utlagetur, 
JVo free man shall be taken, or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed. 



W ^tttUnn*^ ?««- Mt<^u>%iiAK«Nd\riiiNu" -n ii^ «itm liiwi?^ tiittj 



aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur, nee super eum ibimus nee super 
or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upo7i him nor upon 



^U^i^u tti^ir|«i*« WfTtrt-jplf^cwi xvt 



eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorura vel per legem terrae. 
him send, except by the legal j^idgment of his peers or by the law of the land. 

Nulli vendemus, nuUi negabimus, aut differemus, rectum aut justiciam. 
To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny, or delay, right or Justice. 

Sections 39 and 40 of Magna Carta. 

from captivity, and when Hs eldest daughter was to be married 
for the first time. 

In the third place, Magna Carta guarded the rights of the 
boroughs, especially London, and guaranteed to them their 
liberties and free customs. This guaranty meant much, for 
the boroughs of England had been receiving charters from 
the Norman and Angevin kings, which placed them above and 
outside of feudal control, and the kings knew that the rise 
of the cities meant the weakening of feudalism.' 

In the fourth place. Magna Carta promised security to the 
merchants;^ protected, as we shall see, the property of free- 
holders; and said that even a viUei7i, who legally had no right 
to own property, should not lose his oxen and ploughs, how- 
ever heavy a fine might be imposed upon him. 

Lastly, Magna Carta contains certain general clauses, the 
importance of which is easily exaggerated, concerning the lives 
and property of all freemen, that is, of all above the status of 
a villein. These clauses said that no freeman should be impris- 

1 For examples of these charters, see Translations and Reprints, Vol. II, 
No. 1 (Cheyney, " English Towns and Gilds "), pp. 7-11. 

2 Compare Gross, Gild Merchant, Yol. I, p. 165 ; Jenks, Edward I, pp. 201-202. 



1215] MAGNA CARTA. 119 

oiied or exiled or lose his land save by the lawful judgment of 
those of his own rank or by the law of the land. This priv- 
ilege meant that the barons were not to be judged by any one 
of feudal rank lower than themselves, and seems to have been 
the outcome of a protest on the part of those who drafted the 
charter against the employment of professional lawyers as 
justices. The charter also says something about not selling, 
denying, or delaying justice, but this great legal principle was 
at that time only as valuable as the barons and people were 
able to make it.^ 

Very important are the clauses that tell us of administration 
and law. Whenever the king wished advice and counsel in 
assessing scutages or levying an unusual aid, he was to sum- 
mon his greater lords by a letter addressed personally to each 
one. He was to summon the lesser lords also, but by means 
of a general letter sent to the sheriff. All these lords were 
the king's tenants-in-chief, so that the council thus called was 
strictly a feudal council. It is not likely that the lesser lords 
often went to the council, for the journey was troublesome and 
expensive. We learn that the king's court {curia regis) was 
breaking into two parts : one to follow the king, as he moved 
about; the other, which was to deal with common pleas and 
not with pleas of the crown, to stay at Westminster. This 
separation was not made complete, however, till the time of 
Edward I. We know that the work of the itinerant justices 
must have been splendidly successful, for Magna Carta required 
that they go on circuit four times a year. This probably proved 
to be too often, since two years later the four times a year was 
reduced to once a year. The justices were to protect the lands 
of freeholders against the encroachment of the lords, as Henry 
II had already begun to do (pp. 105-106), by seeing that no 
freeholder lost his tenement except through testimony given 

1 For recent comments on Magna Carta, see Pollock and Maitland, History 
of English Law, Vol. I, pp. 172-173 ; Jenks, Edward I, pp. 106-107; McKechnie, 
Magna Carta (2d ed. 1914), Magna Carta Commemoration Essays, 1917, and 
an article by Pollard in History for October, 1917 (also id., April, 1920). 



120 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. [1216 

to the justices by his neighbors in a formal inquiry.* Lastly, 
Magna Carta marks the end of the sheriff's greatness by defi- 
nitely saying that neither sheriffs nor coroners should hold 
pleas of the crown. This meant that, henceforth, both sheriff 
and coroner were to be of local importance only. 

87. Attempt to revoke the Charter. — In the century that fol- 
lowed, the charter was destined to become a ral lying-point for 
the people of England, though for the moment it looked as if 
it might be revoked. John had no intention of keeping his 
promises. On his appeal Pope Innocent relieved him of his 
oath, excommunicated the barons and Stephen Langton, and in a 
special bull declared the charter illegal. John with unexpected 
vigor began war. He recovered the north and the centre, while 
the barons held London and the southeast. The latter, fear- 
ing defeat at the hands of John and his mercenaries, turned 
to the king of France and offered the crown to Louis, Philip's 
son. Louis had a claim to the English throne, based on his 
marriage to Blanche of Castile, John's niece, but with this 
claim he apparently was not satisfied, for he endeavored to 
strengthen his position by inventing tales against King John. 
He asserted, first, that the latter did not deserve the crown 
because of his failure to keep an alleged coronation oath ; and 
secondly, that he had forfeited the crown, having been con- 
demned to death by an alleged court of feudal lords in France, 
summoned by Philip in 1203, to judge the king for the murder 
of Arthur.^ 

Louis crossed to England in May, 1216, and supported by 
the English party began the conquest of the kingdom. John's 
death the October following saved England from civil war 



1 On the assizes of Novel Disseisin, Mort d'Ancestor, and Darrein Present- 
ment, see Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, Vol. I, pp. 145-149; 
Adams and Stephens, No. 24. 

2 This is a possible solution of a series of difficult historical problems. See 
note, p. 113, and for the alleged coronation oath or charter of liberties, see 
Round, E.H.R., 1892, p. 288; Prothero, E. H. R., 1894, p. 117; and Hall, 
E. H. R., 1894, p. 326. 



1217] RESULT OF JOHN'S REIGN. 121 

and brought unexpected relief. The English barons began at 
once to desert the French pretender and to support the legiti- 
mate heir to the throne, John's son, Henry, a lad only nine 
years old. On October 28 Henry was crowned at Gloucester, 
and a week later confirmed a revised text of Magna Carta. 
This act rendered hopeless the cause of Louis, who after a 
defeat at Lincoln in April, 1217, gave up the struggle, and in 
November renounced all claims to the crown. In 1217 Henry 
confirmed the charter a second time, and with the second coro- 
nation in 1220 at the hand of Stephen Langton, the civil war 
caused by John's faithlessness came to an end. The king and 
people were once more apparently working in harmony. 

88. Result of John's Reign. — The reign of John is charac- 
terized by two momentous events : the loss of Kormandy and 
the signing of Magna Carta. Each event had a decided influ- 
ence upon the development of national unity. The first forced 
king and nobles to concentrate their attention upon England 
and to give up their feudal ambitions in France ; the second 
gave written form to the constitutional privileges thus far 
obtained by all classes of the English people, and made it diffi- 
cult for either king or nobility to abuse those privileges in the 
future. 



References to Chapter VI. — The best brief account of the period is 
that in Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets. Freeman's work is continued 
by Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (1887) and John Lackland 
(1902). Green's sections on Henry II, expanded by Mrs. Green, are 
presented in a readable but rather elusive account, Henry II, in the 
English Statesmen Series. A more satisfactory life is Salzmann's Henry 
II (1917). On the legal and administrative side, Pollock and Maitland in 
The History of English Law (2d ed.), Vol. I, Chap. VI, have thrown 
light on the entire period. Stubbs's Constitutional History may be supple- 
mented by the same author's well-known prefaces in the Rolls Series, 
which have been published in a separate volume, entitled Historical 
Introductions (1902). Church history is admirably treated by Stephens 
in the second volume of A History of the English Church. Lives of 
Becket and Stephen Langton may be found in The Dictionary of 
National Biography. Ramsay has continued his history in The Angevin 



122 HENRY II AND HIS SONS. 

Empire : the Reigns of Henry II, Richard /, and John (1903). Powicke 
lias contributed a valuable study in The Loss of Normandy, 1189-1204 
(1913) and Haskins in Norman Institutions traces the influence of Nor- 
man life upon the development of English law and government. The 
latest commentaries on Magna Carta may be found in McKechnie\s 
Magna Carta (2d ed. revised and in part rewritten, 1914), in Magna 
Carta Commemoration Essays (1917), a collection of papers by Mc- 
Kechnie, Adams, Round, Vinogradoff, Mcllwain, Hazeltine, Altamira, 
and Jenkinson, and in an article by Pollard in History, Oct., 1917, pp. 
170-173. For Norman relations with Ireland see Orpen, Ireland under 
the Normans, 1169-1216, 4 vols. (1911, 1920). 



CHAPTER VII. 

HENRY III AND EDWARD I. 

89. Henry III. — The many chroniclers of his reign have 
given us a very good picture of Henry III, and it is not diffi- 
cult to understand his character and its influence upon Eng- 
land. Henry was not a national king in any sense of the 
word. He had an exalted idea of his royal position, and 
believed that the people lived for him, and not he for the peo- 
ple. He was frivolous and extravagant, loved pomp and cere- 
mony, and surrounded himself with selfish favorites. He was 
pious in a mediaeval way and a devout son of the church ; but 
he yielded a too ready obedience to the pope, and was too 
willing to sacrifice the interests of the English to the advance- 
ment of the claims and pretensions of the mediaeval papacy. 
He spent money freely for churches and the adornment of 
churches, but he destroyed the good effects of his generosity by 
filling church offices with favorites, and using church revenues 
for furthering his own and the pope's Continental projects. He 
did nothing to advance the cause which had gained so much 
from the loss of Normandy and the winning of Magna Carta. 
In fact, we may say that he labored intentionally to injure the 
cause of national unity, for he listened only to the advice of 
foreigners and of those hostile to the best interests of the Eng- 
lish people. During his long reign of fifty-six years he suc- 
ceeded in turning every class against him, filled the land with 
aliens, and used England's resources for purposes that the 
English deeply resented. Consequently, as the national spirit 
was constantly growing stronger, it is little wonder that the 
last years of the reign were years of civil war. 

123 



124 



HENRY III. 



[1230 



90. Relations with the Continent. — Henry was far more in- 
terested in the Continent than in England, and was willing to 
use his kingdom and its wealth to make more prominent his 
position abroad. This is shown in three particulars. 

In the first place, he de- 
sired to recover his lost 
fiefs in France. To that 
end he undertook three 
Continental expeditions : 
one in 1230, which was 
nothing but a military 
demonstration along the 
frontiers of Normandy 
and Maine ; a second in 
1242, which nearly ended 
in his capture; and a 
third in 12.54, which re- 
sulted in a treaty of Paris, 
1259, whereby he abso- 
lutely renounced his claims 
to the greater part of the 
Angevin fiefs in France, 
and received, from St. 
Louis (IX), Guienne and 
Gascony. These lands 
remained the only English 
possessions in France till 
the treaty of Bretigny, 
1360. 




Henry III. 
From engraving by Vertue based on 
tbe king's effigy at Westminster. 



In the second place, Henry was connected by blood or mar- 
riage with many of the great families in Europe. His mother, 
after the death of John, had married a Poitevin, the son of 
her old lover, Hugh de la March. In 1237 Henry himself mar- 
ried Eleanor, daughter of the count of Provence and sister of 
the wife of Louis IX. His brother, Richard of Cornwall, him- 
self half a Continental prince, had taken as his second wife a 



1225] 



HENRY'S MINORITY. 125 



sister of Eleanor,^ and as his third the niece of the archbishop 
of Cologne. Two of Henry's sisters had married respectively 
Alexander II of Scotland, and Frederick II, the great Hohen- 
staufen, "Wonder of the World" and emperor of the Holy 
Eoman Empire; while his eldest son, Edward, married a 
princess of Castile. These foreign connections were destined 
to have a most disastrous effect upon Henry's government at 
home. 

In the third place, Henry was, by virtue of John's submis- 
sion to the pope, a vassal of the Roman See. This position 
not only increased his intimacy with Eome, but also laid 
England open to excessive papal exactions. 

91 . Henry' s Minority : Wise Government of Hubert de Burgh. — 
From 1220 till 1227 government was in the hands of one of the 
ablest men of the time, Hubert de Burgh. He ruled wisely 
and well, and during these years the national party was in 
control. Hubert denied the papal claims upon England, and 
drove out the legates that the pope, Honorius III, had sent to 
manage the land in the interest of the Holy See. He attacked 
the foreigners, such as Peter des Roches and Fawkes de Bre- 
aute; who refused to obey the law of the land as shaped by 
Magna Carta, and drove them, too, out of England. He com- 
pelled Henry to confirm Magna C!arta for the third time, in 
1225, giving the charter, now changed in many particulars, the 
final form in which it was to be embodied in the laws of the 
land.2 Hubert was in some ways arbitrary and exacting, but 
he believed in England for the English, and npheld loyally 
the forms of government that had been developed by the 
kings and justiciars who had preceded him. 



1 The fourth daughter of Count Raymond of Provence married Charles of 
Anjou, the brother of Louis IX. Thus we have the interesting spectacle of 
four sisters marrying two pairs of brothers. Each sister, too, became eventu- 
ally a queen, for Richard of Cornwall had the title King of the Romans, and 
Charles of Anjou became king of Sicily. Jenks, Edward I, pp. 70-72 (table). 

2Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 353, and Bemont, Chartes des Liberies 
Anglaises, p. 45. 



126 HENRY III. [1227 

92. Coming of the Aliens. — In 1227 Henry declared himself 
of age, and dismissing Hubert de Burgh, made Peter des 
Roches, a Poitevin and bishop of Winchester, justiciar in his 
place. An era of foreign influence and misgovernment began. 
Swarms of aliens settled upon England: first in 1232, then 
again in 1237 at the time of the king's marriage, and a third 
time between 1247 and 1258. Poitevins and Bretons, Ger- 
mans, Italians, and Provencals, relatives of the king or his 
wife, flocked to England, attracted by the prospect of prefer- 
ment and wealth. They received from the king not only gifts 
and pensions, but offices, lands, and important privileges also. 
Henry made his wife's uncle, Boniface of Savoy, archbishop 
of Canterbury ; another uncle he made bishop of Hereford ; 
scores of other aliens received offices of state, positions of 
trust, wardships of castles, and the like. The avarice of 
these foreigners exceeded all bounds. They sapped the coun- 
try of its wealth, abused their inferiors, and played the part 
of petty despots. They forced itinerant justices, sheriffs, and 
bailiffs to harry the courts and to take therefrom the last 
penny. They plundered London, oppressed the Jews, despoiled 
the tenantry on their estates. Henry shared in the infamous 
work: he revoked old privileges that they might be bought 
back, sold charters, made levies on the monasteries, and en- 
forced forest laws with exasperating rigor. The amount of 
money thus raised was enormous, but it was spent outside 
of England, and the king's treasury was always empty.^ 

93. Papal Demands upon England. — At the same time, the 
popes, exercising their authority as heads of the church and 
overlords of England, were compelling clergy and people to sub- 
mit to grievous exactions. The mediaeval church v^^as world- 
wide in spirit and claims. It demanded for itself universal 
authority, declared that kings and princes held their thrones 
at the will of the pope, and that the temporal power was 



1 Colby, No. 31, A. It has been estimated that from 1227 to 1257 the king 
squandered 950,000 marks. 



1245] THE SICILIAN CROWN. 127 

ordained of God to be subject to the spiritual. Innocent III 
was almost the only pope that had made good these claims, 
but for a century his successors were to assert them. The 
church was in fact a great mediaeval state including all coun- 
tries within its sway, and the popes, as the representatives of 
God on earth, claimed to be temporal overlords of emperors 
and kings. Innocent had concerned himself with temporal 
matters in nearly every state in Europe, and both he and his 
successors looked on England as especially under their control 
on account of John's oath of fealty. Henry had confirmed 
this oath, and in so doing had laid England open to papal 
interference of the most sweeping character. 

• This interference took two forms : the demand for money, 
and the exercise of the right to fill English ecclesiastical 
positions with foreigners, chiefly Italians. The popes after 
Honorius, the successor to Innocent, needing money for the 
war with the emperor, Frederick II (1226-1250),^ reduced the 
demands on England to a science. England became a "garden 
of delight." "Verily," said Innocent IV, "England is an 
inexhaustible well, and where many things abound, from the 
many can much be extorted." Year by year heavier sums 
were demanded, individuals were compelled to make payment, 
taxes were levied, and church estates plundered. In the year 
1245, sixty thousand marks, a sum double the income of the 
crown itself, was sent to Eome. Italians were forced into 
bishoprics and other benefices. Many of these foreigners were 
illiterate and ignorant, of irreligious lives and character, greedy 
and unscrupulous. The church became impoverished, and reli- 
gious life sank to a low state of efficiency. 

94. The Sicilian Crown. — Henry now became involved in a 
project that put the capstone upon England's misery and 
drove the feudal lords to open rebellion. The chief purpose 
of the popes in their war with Frederick II had been to loose 



1 An admirable account of this struggle may be found in Henderson, A 
History of Germany in the Middle Ages, Chap. XXIV. 



128 HENRY III. [1253 

the latter's hold upon southern Italy and Sicily. Frederick 
had received these territories from his mother, Constance of 
Sicily, and had spent most of his life at Palermo. At his 
death in 1250, the pope claimed the right to dispose of Sicily 
as he would, and offered it first to Richard of Cornwall. But 
Richard shrewdly refused it. It was then offered to Charles of 
Anjou, brother of Louis IX, who at this time refused it, though 
he afterward accepted it. Then in 1253 the pope offered it to 
Edmund, Henry's youngest son. Henry accepted it for his son, 
though the heir was his own nephew, Conrad, son of Fred- 
erick II. As the kingdom was in the possession of Conrad and 
his half-brother Manfred, this offer merely meant that the pope 
wanted Henry's aid in conquering it, and that Edmund was to 
hold it as a vassal of the pope. Thus the offer of the Sicilian 
kingdom was merely another evidence of the pope's desire to 
use English gold in the war with the empire.^ 

For four years, from 1254 to 1258, Henry pursued this phan- 
tom and poured money into Italy. He emptied his own treas- 
ury, borrowed from all who would lend, forced money from the 
Jews, employed the machinery of government to raise all 
that he could from the land; and then, in the end, found 
that he had labored in vain, for the barons compelled him to 
stop sending money to the pope, and the latter in consequence 
again offered the Sicilian crown to Charles of Anjou. 

95. The National Movement: the Friars and Robert Grosseteste. 
— While Henry was pursuing foreign schemes, welcoming 
aliens and foreign prelates to England, and spending the wealth 
of the kingdom like water, a national movement was gradu- 
ally taking shape. Since the winning of Magna Carta new 
influences had been making themselves felt. Chief of these 
was the work of the friars. In 1220 the Dominicans had 
come to England ; in 1224 the Franciscans. The former were 
called the Friars Preachers ; the latter, the Friars Minor or 

1 For an excellent account of the circumstances attending this offer, see 
E. H. R., 189.5, pp. 19-27, " Edmund of Lancaster." Henry needed 135,000 
marks in order to accept the offer. 



1245] THE RESISTANCE OF THE BARONS. 129 

Minorites. These men applied themselves at once to the 
great task of raising the religious life of England. Under a 
vow of poverty they labored among the people of the towns, — 
notably London and Oxford, — preaching the Christian faith, 
healing the sick, and bringing hope and comfort to the poor 
and afflicted. Thus they stood in striking contrast to the 
higher clergy, who in their thirst for preferment and wealth 
were neglecting the spiritual needs of the masses.^ The friars 
produced Roger Bacon, who was to influence the world of 
thought, and Adam of Marsh, who was a power at Oxford in 
his day. They supported the only great and worthy church- 
man of this period, Eobert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, who 
was almost alone among the great prelates in his opposition to 
the policy of king and pope.^ Grosseteste stands in English 
annals as the enemy of misgovernment, the upholder of national 
unity and independence. 

96. The Resistance of the Barons. — It must not be supposed 
that the king's policy had been borne in silence. Many 
protests had been uttered, but they had gone unheeded. In 
1244 and 1245 " parliaments," as they were beginning to be 
called, had been summoned. In the first of them Grosseteste 
had made a noble speech, which he had followed up with a let- 
ter to the " Lords and Commons " of the realm. In the second, 
the barons had compelled the king to confirm the charter for 
the fifth time.^ With bell, book, and candle the bishops had 
excommunicated all who should infringe its provisions, and 
Henry had solemnly promised to maintain it inviolate. But 
the charter was no better observed after this ceremony than it 
had been before. 

Three events strengthened the cause of the barons : Henry's 



1 Social England, Vol. I, pp. 404-406, 431-4.34; Stephens's History of the 
English Church, Vol. II, pp. .302-307. Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, con- 
tains a delightful account of the coming of the friars to England. In general, 
see Robinson's Introduction to the History of Western Europe, Chap. XVII. 

2 Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, by Stevenson (1899). 
* He had confirmed it a fourth time in 1237. 



130 HENRY III. [1258 

acceptance of the Sicilian crown ; a war witli the Welsh (1256- 
1258), which ended ingloriously for the king ; ^ and a famine 
during the winter of 1257 and 1258, which brought frightful 
hardships on the poor. The barons determined to resist, and 
Simon de Montfort appeared as their leader. Simon was " a 
man of imperious and ambitious temper, with a contempt and 
hatred of misgovernment and incapacity, and one who could 
not stand by idle when a national revolt impended.'^ He had 
gone to the Holy Land in 1240, had fought in Poitou in 1242, 
and from 1248 to 1253 had been governor of Gascony. He 
was intimate with Adam of Marsh and Robert Grosseteste, 
and was as eager to reform the state as the great bishop had 
been to reform the church. When, therefore, in the spring 
of 1258, the discontent of baronage and people reached its 
height, Simon de Montfort found himself forced forward as 
the leader of the popular cause. In April, at a meeting of 
the great council, or "parliament," the barons demanded the 
appointment of twenty-four of the wisest men of England 
to advise the king, to bring about a general change in the 
royal ofl&cials, and to erect a government that should care for 
the good of the people. Henry yielded, and in May issued a 
decree authorizing the appointment. In June the "parlia- 
ment" again met, this time at Oxford, to draw up a list of 
reforms. 

97. Provisions or Reforms of Oxford. — The " parliament " at 
Oxford ^ began by demanding that all aliens should leave Eng-; 
land, and that castles in the hands of aliens should be given up 
to the English. This was agreed to and effected after some 
resistance on the part of the foreigners. Then the barons, in 
what is known as the Provisions of Oxford, set up a new govern- 
ment.^ 



1 On the causes and course of this war, see Edwards, Wales, Chaps. VIII, IX. 
For a description of England in 1257, see Kendall, No. 25. See also Morris's 
Welsh Wars of Edward I. 

2 Commonly called the Mad Parliament. 
8 Adams and Stephens, No. 34. 



1264] PROVISIONS OF OXFORD. 131 

They agreed that the twenty-four already appointed should 
select four of their number, who in turn were to choose fifteen 
others as a permanent council to govern with the king. These 
fifteen were to keep in their own hands the appointment of the 
great officers of the kingdom. They were also to meet three 
times a year, in February, June, and October, and with them 
was to sit a special committee of twelve, chosen by the " com- 
monalty," that is, the party of the barons. This was a very 
complicated arrangement, and it set up, as can be seen readily, 
an oligarchical administration. Though this government lasted 
from 1258 to 1263, and though the bodies of fifteen and twelve 
met regularly three times a year, the system was too clumsy 
to be efficient, and the fact that the members of the king's 
party quarrelled with the representatives of the barons made 
failure almost inevitable. 

The turning-point of the movement came when the old earl 
of Gloucester, who represented the nobility, and Simon de 
Montfort, who stood as the defender of the popular cause, 
disagreed for reasons that historians have never been able 
satisfactorily to ascertain. Then the king and his supporters, 
growing weary of the barons' control, and taking advantage of 
the discord in the reform party, tried to break down the gov- 
ernment. Henry obtained a bull from the pope, releasing him 
from his oath; he removed the justiciar appointed by the 
barons, and« defied the provisions by openly violating their con- 
ditions. Gloucester and Montfort buried their enmity in the 
presence of this danger. Civil war was imminent, though all 
sought to avoid it. Finally, in 1262, they referred the matter 
to the arbitration of Louis IX, whose reputation for justice all 
acknowledged. In January, 1264, the French king, in the 
award or Mise of Amiens, decided against the reformers, and 
at one stroke undid all that the barons had accomplished since 
1258. The pope confirmed the verdict. 

98. The Barons' War : the Battle of Lewes. — The Mise of 
Amiens was received in England with indignation, for all 
feared a return of the rule of the foreigners. The citizens of 



132 HENRY III. [1264 

London rose in revolt, imprisoned the king's officers, and plun- 
dered the king's houses. Simon and the young earl of Glouces- 
ter (the old earl had died in 1262) became reconciled and 
were joined by Llewellyn, the Welsh prince,^ and other barons. 
Bui the king was far from weak. He was aided by his son 
Edward, by John Balliol and other lords of the north, and by his 
foreign allies from the continent. In the war that followed 
victory seemed at first to lie in the king's hands, but after a 
series of mistakes that more than counterbalanced his earlier 
successes, Henry was surprised by Simon, Gloucester, and the 
Londoners at L'ewes in Sussex on May 14, 1264. The battle 
was lost for the king, in part because of the impetuous and ill- 
timed charge of Prince Edward, and in part by Simon's terrific 
attack on the centre of the king's army. The battle put Simon 
in possession of the machinery of government, and gave into 
his hands as a hostage Prince Edward, whom the defeat at 
Lewes had changed "from a reckless youth of promise into 
a sober, capable man." For a year Simon ruled in the king's 
name. 

99. Simon's Government. — In June, 1264, Simon summoned 
a parliament composed not only of barons and clergy, but also 
of four knights from each shire. This assembly restored the 
government established by the Provisions of Oxford, with the 
difference that Simon,. Gloucester, and Bishop Berksted took 
the place of the council of four, and appointed a committee of 
nine to advise the king and to manage the affairs of the king- 
dom. During the months that followed, Simon's power was 
greatly strengthened by a threatened invasion of the foreigners, 
led by those who had been driven out of England. The Eng- 
lish of all parties responded at once to the call for an army of 
resistance, and so determined were they that the invaders 
asked for a parley, and an agreement was reached to submit 
all questions in dispute to a great national assembly to be 
held in London in January, 1265. 

1 Edwards, Wales, pp. 168-171. 



1265] THE FIRST GREAT PARLIAMENT. 133 

100. The First Great Parliament. — This London parlia- 
ment of 1265 marks a great advance in the constitutional 
history of England. The old council of the king had been 
strictly a feudal assembly. At its meetings the people were 
not expected to be present ; as far as they can be said to have 
been represented, they were represented by their lords. In 
1213, after his submission to the pope, John had summoned 
a council at St. Albans, to which he called men from the vills 
on the royal demesne. In so doing he simply enlarged the 
scope of the inquest, for he wanted to make inquiry of these 
men about the losses and the confiscated property of each of 
the bishops who had excommunicated him in 1209, and whose 
estates he had seized.^ 

A more important innovation was the summons of four 
" discreet men " from each shire to a council at Oxford three 
months later.^ These men were important landholders in the 
counties, who were called knights of the shire because they 
were chosen by the freeholders in the county court to act in 
certain capacities for the county. Originally lowest in rank 
of the feudal lords, they were rapidly becoming a middle 
class of small landowners. Scutage had relieved them of 
military service, agriculture had become their dominant inter- 
est, and the county court the scene of their chief political 
activity. The election of such knights as coroners for the 
county was already a familiar event, but their election to sit 
in the great council of the realm was a new and almost bewil- 
dering extension of their functions. Still, such an election 
was not unnatural, for the knights were feudal in origin, and 
as coroners had been accustomed to guard the pleas of the 
crown for the royal justices and had become familiar with 
matters connected with the central administration. 

After 1213 there was not another summons of knights for 
forty years. In 1254 Henry directed the sheriffs to send to 
the council of Westminster two knights to assess an aid to be 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 26. ^ Adams and Stephens, No. 27. 



134 HENRY III. [1265 

laid on the county,' and his example was followed twice during 
the next ten years. The knights, as wealthy landowners, were 
becoming an important class in the shires, and their advice and 
help was desired by the king and the greater lords. Yet the 
latter had no thought of a representative governing body, or 
they would not have set up such an unwieldy system as that 
established by the Provisions of Oxford. 

But when in 1265 Simon, in the king's name, summoned 
an assembly to make terms with the invaders, he introduced 
a great constitutional innovation. His chief enemies were 
among the barons, his chief supporters among the knights and 
freeholders of the counties and the citizens of the boroughs. 
After he had issued writs to the clergy and barons, as was 
always done in summoning a great council, he turned to his 
own allies and bade the sheriffs send up two knights from 
each shire, and the burgesses two of their number from each 
borough, who with the others were to meet with the king. The 
response to the summons was immediate and hearty. Five earls, 
eighteen barons, all the bishops who were not hostile to Simon, 
and a great number of knights and burgesses gathered at 
London. It was a partisan body, for it was composed only of 
Simon's followers ; but it was called for a partisan purpose, 
to uphold Simon's cause. There is no reason to believe that 
Simon intended such a body to be regularly or permanently 
summoned, or even to be summoned a second time. Never- 
theless, this gathering set a precedent for the future, and in 
this sense, perhaps, Simon may be called the " creator of the 
House of Commons." 

101. Simon's Defeat and Death. — The parliament of 1265 
came to an agreement with the king, who swore to observe the 
Charter and the Provisions of Oxford. Simon was recognized 
ruler of England and seems to have been appointed justiciar. 
But while many of the barons had stood by him in the presence 
of foreign invaders, they were not likely to do so when he 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 33. 



1268] SIMON'S DEFEAT AND DEATH. 135 

became the autocrat of England. The young earl of Grloucester, 
who had fought on Simon's side at Lewes, turned against him. 
Prince Edward, watching carefully the course of events, and 
seeing indications of Simon's waning popularity, succeeded in 
escaping from his custodian, the earl of Hereford. With Edward 
free, Simon's cause was greatly imperilled. The barons wished 
a king as their ruler ; and while they distrusted Henry and sup- 
ported Simon against a foreign foe, they were more than will- 
ing to listen to Prince Edward when he promised to meet their 
wishes for reform. Gloucester and Edward came together at 
Ludlow in June, 1265, and the prince promised to persuade the 
king to meet at all important points the wishes of the barons. 

War was now inevitable. Edward gathered his adherents 
in the west and turned to face Simon, who, dismayed at the 
turn affairs had taken, at once employed the machinery of 
government to crush the prince. He summoned the feudal 
array, ordered the sheriffs to capture Edward, requested the 
bishops to excommunicate him, and called on Llewellyn, prince 
of Wales, to invade England. Every effort was vain. The 
opposing armies met on the field near Evesham, and there, 
on August 4, Simon was defeated and slain.* Thus died a 
man who, in spite of all his ambition and imperiousness, did a 
great work for England. He had checked the denationalizing 
policy of Henry III, and whatever may have been his motive, 
had, for a time at least, stood forth as a national leader. His 
methods were not always commendable, but he had taught 
England a good lesson. By one Englishman that lesson was 
well learned; for when Edward made his peace with the 
barons, it was Simon's principle of government that he prom- 
ised to adopt. 

From 1266 to 1272, peace reigned, in the main, throughout 
England. In the Dictum of Kenilworth (1267), Henry III, 
restored to power, proclaimed an amnesty and confirmed the 
great charter. In 1268, Edward was able to leave England 

1 Colby, No. 31, B ; Kendall, Nos. 26, 27. 



136 EDWARD I. [1272 

to join Louis IX, his uncle, on the last crusade. Two adven- 
turous years were spent by him in the East, and his fame as a 
crusader spread over Europe. So well established was his 
place in the hearts of the English that in 1272, when Henry 
III died, he did not fear to delay for two years more his return 
to England. Proclaimed king in 1272, he did not arrive in his 
kingdom until 1274, when he was crowned. Then began the 
great work of one of the greatest of English kings. 

102. Edward I. — Edward had been trained in a stern school 
of experience. He had seen all the disasters of bad govern- 
ment, and with a great man's instinct for compromise knew 
how to remedy abuses without arousing permanent opposition 
among his people. He had love of power, and a masterfulness 
which in his early years gave him a reputation for cruelty ; but 
he became more temperate as he grew older, and while never 
lacking in bravery, showed a sympathetic, even an affectionate 
nature. He was chaste, devout, frugal, and dignified, always 
just, faithful, and persevering, and in his motto, 2mctum serva 
(keep troth), he cherished an ideal which, though difficult 
of attainment, was unusual for the times. He supplemented 
the work of his ancestor, Henry II, because where the latter 
displayed a genius for administration, Edward displayed a 
genius for law, and shaped in a legal mould the growing 
English constitution. Warrior, lawgiver, financier, Edward 
was destined to leave an indelible impression upon English 
history. 

103. Edward's Attack on the Feudal Claims of the Barons. — 
Scarcely had the king been crowned when he began a search- 
ing inquiry into the feudal conditions of England. Under 
Henry III the barons had been getting into their hands many 
of the royal estates, and exercising powers in matters of 
revenue, justice, and all sorts of local privileges that were in 
some quarters reducing the royal rights to little or nothing. 
Edward determined to restore to the crown these privileges, or 
"franchises," as they were called, claiming that they were the 
king's. In 1274 he sent commissioners, much as William had 



1278] ATTACK ON THE CLAIMS OF THE BARONS. 137 

done when he made Domesday Book, to inquire hundred by 
hundred regarding these franchises, and to write them down in 
a permanent record. Tliis record still exists, and is called the 
Hundred Rolls, standing next to Domesday Book as a record 
of mediaeval life. 

Having thus gathered his information, Edward spent three 
years in considering the evidence that it furnished. Then at 
Gloucester, in 1278, he held a great council, and there declared 
his purpose of sending out his justices to inquire by what 
warrant the barons exercised these privileges. If the barons, 
he said, could not show that a king had conferred them, 
then he would take them away. Edward was as good as 
his word. The justices set ont in 1279 and visited all the 
counties, calling the great men before them and listening to 
their statements or pleas.^ The great men were thoroughly 
angry. The earl of Warenne, hating the lawyers, drew his 
sword and replied to their inquiry that his ancestors had 
won their lands by the sword, and by the sword he proposed 
to hold them. Edward did not wish to go to extremes; he 
desired to teach the barons a lesson, but he still wished to 
remain on friendly terms with them. So he compromised, 
leaving to them all franchises that had actually been exer- 
cised before the accession of Eichard I. Yet even so the 
result was fatal to feudalism: the king had asserted his 
power, and in the years that were to follow the great lords lost 
bit by bit the privileges that in the earlier years they had 
so imperiously exercised. 

In the same year (1278) Edward dealt feudalism another 
blow by completing the transformation of the knight from a 
military vassal into an agricultural landholder. He compelled 
every person possessing land of the value of £20 a year to 
assume " the degree of a knight, with its costly ceremonies, or 

1 Thus first we have the instructions to the commissioners, then the evi- 
dence gathered (the Hundred Rolls), then the decision of the king (the 
preamble to the statute of Gloucester), then the barons' pleas before the 
justices (Placita de Quo Warranto). 



138 EDWARD I. [1275 

to pay a fine.'^ ^ This broke up the exclusive character of 
feudal society by creating a new body of knights, not feudal 
at all, but composed of the middle class landholders, who, 
doing no military service to an intermediate lord, owed their 
honor directly to the king, and to him alone their fealty and 
homage. 

104. The Further Correction of Abuses. — It is amazing to see 
how widely, even at this early date, Edward's reforms extended, 
and how thoroughly he had learned the lesson that Earl Simon 
and his own experience had taught him. In 1275, at a parlia- 
ment held at Westminster, he brought forward a great meas- 
ure, known as the First Statute of Westminster.^ This statute, 
in the first place, dealt with the royal administration, seeking 
not to change its form,^ but to remedy its abuses. A mere list 
of these abuses would fill a page and would throw a glar- 
ing light on the way in which the foreigners that had held 
royal offices under Henry III had been misusing the powers 
given them. Unjust fines, refusal of bail, illegal claims of 
debts, demand of debts already paid, interference in courts 
and in county elections, excessive levying of aids, were all 
considered in this great statute. Secondly, it forbade the 
feudal lords to abuse those privileges that were clearly within 
their rights. Thirdly, it guarded the rights of merchants 
and of citizens. " The men who drew up the statute of West- 
minster the First," says Jenks, " were no theorists, they knew 
exactly where the shoe pinched." * 

105. Conquest of Wales. — Even while setting the adminis- 
tratioa of his kingdom in order, Edward was engaged in a 
war with Llewellyn, prince of Wales, who had refused at his 
bidding to do him homage.* For many years the Welsh had 
maintained their independence, and had resisted all attempts 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 39; Jenks, Edward I, p. 187, note. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 37. 

8 The abolition of the office of justiciar was the only change effected by 
Edward in the form of government. 

4 Jenks, Edward I, p. 174. 6 Edwards, Wales, Chap. X. 



I 



1283] TWO YEARS OF GREAT LAWS, 1283-1285. 139 

of the English kings to incorporate their land with England. 
They had, in previous years, so threatened the western fron- 
tier that the great March earldoms of Chester, Pembroke, and 
Glamorgan had been erected to guard against Welsh invasion. 
The lords of these Marches, though vassals of the English king, 
were practically independent potentates. Llewellyn had in- 
curred Edward's anger by aiding Simon de Montfort against 
Henry III. In 1277 Edward led an army across the border, 
and after a brief campaign in North Wales forced Llewellyn 
to a peace. But in 1282, incited and aided by his brother 
David, Llewellyn rose in revolt. Edward, who may have 
been waiting for him "to commit himself beyond forgive- 
ness," gathered his forces, fleet and army, and after a dif- 
ficult but vigorous campaign defeated the Welsh at Orewin 
Bridge. Llewellyn was slain ; David soon after was captured, 
and finally executed as a traitor (1283-1284). 

By the statute of Rhuddlan, Wales was divided into four 
shires and annexed to England. Anglesey was peopled with 
English farmers, and the shires were organized after the Eng- 
lish model, though Edward wisely retained as the basis of 
his system the old tribal and feudal divisions of the land. 
In 1301 the title of Prince of Wales was given to Edward's 
son, though it carried with it no political power, and remained 
from that time forward simply the chief title conferred upon 
the heir-apparent to the English throne. 

106. Two Years of Great Laws, 1283-1285. — Edward's early 
work had been largely that of a reformer ; but now, even while 
the Welsh war was in progress, he was establishing his greater 
claim to fame as a lawgiver. Many of the laws of this period 
are difficult for any except a trained lawyer to understand, but 
their general character can easily be stated. 

Ever keeping in mind the needs of foreign trade and the 
merchants, Edward, in the Statute of Merchants, or of Acton- 
Burnell, sought to remedy a widespread evil.^ Such a thing 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 41. 



140 EDWARD I. [1283 

as credit in business had not yet come into existence, and there 
existed no way whereby merchants (and merchants were gen- 
erally aliens ^) could compel the payment of a debt. As " credit 
is the life-blood of commerce," Edward knew that trade would 
be strangled if some remedy, other than compulsion, were 
not provided. So at Acton-Burnell, in 1283, he promulgated 
a statute allowing a merchant to summon his debtor before the 
mayor of a chartered borough, there to acknowledge the debt, 
and to sign a bill promising to pay it. If the debtor did not 
pay, the mayor had authority to imprison him or to seize his 
goods. This simple remedy proved of the greatest value and 
was widely employed, and it placed commerce and trade on a 
new footing in England. 

By an interpretation of this statute the entire property of a 
wealthy lord could be seized for the debts of an eldest son. 
The barons, already discontented by the inquiry into their 
privileges, seem to have joined forces and compelled Edward 
to make a concession that would save them from this danger. 
Class feeling and family pride were still so strong that the 
nobility would not let their lands be seized for debt and their 
sources of revenue destroyed, without making a protest. To 
prevent such a disaster they demanded the right to hand 
down their estates in unbroken succession, from eldest son 
to eldest son, so that henceforth no heir could pledge the 
estate for debt. Edward, probably unwillingly, granted this 
demand in the Second Statute of Westminster, the first 
chapter of which is commonly called the Statute of Entails.^ 
Thus arose the entailed estates of England. Though popular 
during the two centuries following, they afterwards went out 
of favor, and since the fifteenth century the statute, though 
never repealed, has been successfully evaded. 



1 A foreigner was either a man from abroad or from another town. An 
alien was always a man from abroad. The only adequate account of aliens in 
England is by Cunningham, Alien Immigrants to England, from the Norman 
Conquest to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1899). 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 42 (abridged). 



1285] TWO YEARS OF GREAT LAWS, 1283-1285. 141 

The remaining chapters of the Second Statute of West< 
minster dealt with very different matters. They provided for 
a more vigorous correction of abuses of the feudal lords and 
royal officials and thus supplemented the First Statute of West- 
minster. They regulated also the conduct of lawsuits, in order 
to prevent collusion, fraud, and delay; and commanded the chan- 
cellor, who issued writs authorizing a suit to be brought to the 
royal courts, to act not according to precedent, but according to 
the principle involved in the case. In this as in other partic- 
ulars the statute, full to the brim of dry and technical details, 
was simply a splendid effort on the part of the king to substi- 
tute his law for time-honored custom, and to bring into royal 
hands a great deal of business that had hitherto been controlled 
by the church, lords, boroughs, and the courts of the county 
and the hundred. But in reality it was to be two centuries 
before this was accomplished. 

The attempt to centralize justice would have had little result 
had not Edward already (1278) strengthened the royal courts 
and made them more accessible. In so doing he merely com- 
pleted the work of his predecessors. He organized more defi- 
nitely the King's Bench, the court that in theory, though not in 
fact, always sat in the king's presence; and confirmed the inde- 
pendence of the other court, which Magna Carta had said should 
sit permanently at Westminster, there to hear the common 
pleas.^ Thus out of the old curia regis three common law 
courts had been created : the King's Bench, the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas, and the Exchequer, the last of which really devel- 
oped its judicial functions at a later time. The king did not 
give up his judicial functions, for any one deeming that he had 
not received justice might petition the king through the chan- 
cellor. Out of this practice arose the Court of Chancery, an 
equity court ; while higher still, the king sat at the head of his 
council and acted as a supreme court. 

1 The justices of this court went regularly on circuit into the shires. For 
the assizes held in the shires, see p. 105, note 2. The common pleas were the 
disputes between private persons, subjects of the king. 



142 EDWARD I. [1285 

107. Organization of the Militia and Local Police. — We are 

not yet done with the legislation of these two great years. 
Thus far Edward had dealt with the royal oihcials, the feudal 
landowners, and the merchants. But in the autumn of 1285 
he turned to the people at large, and in the Statute of Winches- 
ter sought to make out of every freeholder a soldier and an 
orderly citizen, ready to aid in the preservation of the peace. ^ 

This statute declared that the people of each hundred should 
be responsible for the robberies committed in that hundred, 
and that the people of each town should keep watch and ward 
in that town and deliver suspicious strangers and actual crim- 
inals to the sheriff, and in case of resistance should raise the 
hue and cry and pursue the offender from town to town, until 
he should be captured. Landholders were to widen highways 
that ran from market town to market town through their es- 
tates and to keep the adjoining land, for two hundred feet on 
each side, cleared of thickets where thieves might lurk. Every 
man between fifteen and sixty j^ears of age was to have armor 
in his house according to his property, and twice every year 
was to present himself at the "view of armor" held in his 
hundred, where two constables were to inspect the array and 
to present to the justices all defaults of armor, highways, 
and watches. 

Three things are especially noteworthy in this statute : no 
man was to be excused because of ignorance of the law ; the 
constable appears for the first time in the service of the 
crown; and lastly, the act, by a special provision, commanded 
that all who did not have armor or weapons should provide 
bows and arrows. Edward, like Henry II before him, knew 
the value of infantry and improved on the Assize of Arms by 
the addition of the bowmen. Yet it must be remembered 
that this militia was still a local levy, supplied and equipped 
by the vicinity. The idea of a national army paid by the state 
belongs to modern times. 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 43. 



1279] 



EDWARD AND THE CHURCH. 143 



108. Edward and the Church. — There still remained the 
church to deal with. Six years before, in 1279, Edward had had 
his first brush with the ecclesiastical organization and had pro- 
mulgated one of the most important and famous of all his statutes 
— the Statute of Mortmain.^ This law forbade men to transfer 
land on any condition to a monastery or other religious corpora- 
tion. So frequently had such transfers been made in the past, 
that it is estimated that one-fourth of the lands of England 
had come under the control of the church. By such transfer- 
ence the king lost the military service due from these lands, 
and the feudal lords lost an important part of their revenues. 
The church was a tenant that never died and never forfeited 
its lands; therefore it had no occasion, as had other feudal 
tenants, to render dues at times of marriage, to furnish profits 
from wardships or the care of minors, or to pay fines when 
a new tenant took the place of one that had died. For these 
reasons land so transferred was said to be given m manum 
mortuum, that is, into the dead hand of the patron saint. 
Edward and his barons were in entire accord in remedying 
this abuse, and when they drafted the Second Statute of West- 
minster they took occasion to say again that land could not 
be given in Mortmain. The terms of the Mortmain statute, 
although later they were frequently evaded by clever ecclesi- 
astics with a turn for law,^ were nevertheless efficient in 
checking the growth of monasteries. 

At the same time Edward laid down certain rules, which 
he gave to his justices, regarding the jurisdiction of the 
church courts or courts Christian. This official order, called 
circumspecte agatis,^ contains a list of those cases that the 
church could take up in its own courts. It also asserts that 
certain other cases, which the church had been wont to consider 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 40; Lee, No. 85; Gee and Hardy, No. XXVIH. 
For the practical repetition of the statute in 1392, see Adams and Stephens, 
No. 97. 

2 Adams and Stephens, p. 155, § 5. 

3 Adams and Stephens, No. 44; Gee and Hardy, No. XXIX. 



144 EDWARD I. [1286 

within its own jurisdiction, were in reality cases that ought to 
come before the royal courts. Thus again did Edward seek to 
extend the authority of the royal courts and the royal justices. 

The record of these years is a brilliant one. No important 
class of his people escaped the beneficial work of the king 
and his ministers. 

109. The Succession in Scotland. — But the year that followed 
the last of these great measures saw the opening of a phase of 
Edward's career that is less satisfactory to contemj)late. His 
solution of the difficult Scottish problem has added little to his 
fame. Thus far the Scottish nation had been wholly inde- 
pendent, though the submission of William the Lion (p. 103) 
and the renewal of allegiance by his son, Alexander II, in 1217, 
had seemed to give the English kings a. title to a vague over- 
lordship. 

The son of Alexander II, Alexander III, who had married 
Edward's sister Margaret, died in 1286, leaving as the only 
descendant of the house of Malcolm, Margaret, the Maid of 
Norway, Alexander Ill's granddaughter and Edward's grand- 
niece. Edward willingly accepted the proposal of Eric of 
Norway, father of Maid Margaret, that he should conduct all 
negotiations touching her future. In 1289 it was arranged 
with Scottish representatives that Margaret should be sent to 
England and should there marry Edward's son, afterward the 
Prince of Wales, and thus unite the two kingdoms. But the 
death of Margaret on her way from Norway to England 
brought this plan to naught and threw the whole question 
of the Scottish succession into confusion. Claimants to the 
throne came forward, chief of whom were John Balliol, of the 
eldest collateral line, whose grandmother was eldest niece of 
William the Lion, and Eobert Bruce, son of William's second 
niece. The submission of the case to Edward for settlement 
brought forward the difficult question as to whether the king 
of England was feudal overlord of Scotland. The claimants 
seemed to recognize him as such when they admitted in 1291 
that " the sovereign seigniory of the realm of Scotland " was 



1291] 



THE SUCCESSION IN SCOTLAND. 



145 



vested in him. A long deliberation ensued, during which the 
questions debated were : (1) Were the rights of an elder sister 
greater than those of a younger ? and (2) Was the third gen- 

THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION IN SCOTLAND. 

(See table, p. 103.) 
David, Earl of Huntingdon 



I r 

Margaret Isabella 



Alan, Lord of 

Galloway j 

John Balliol = Devorguilla 

L_ 



Robert Bruce Ada = Henry 



Lord of Annandale 



Robert Bruce 
(claimant) 



Hastings 



Henry Hastings 
(claimant) 



John Balliol Margaret = John Comyn 

(claimant) I Robert Bruce 

1292-1296 John Comyn 

I (slain 1306) 

Edward Balliol Robert Bruce = (i) Isabella 

1332-1334 1306-1329 = (2) Mary 

® I ® 



David II = Joanna 
1329-1371 daughter of 
Edward III 
of England 



Margaret = Walter, the High Steward 

Robert II 
(High Steward and King) 
1371-1390 

Robert III 
1390-1406 

James I 
1406-1437 



James II 
1437-1460 

James III 
1460-1488 

James IV : 
1488-1513 



Margaret = Louis XI 



Henry VII 
King of England 

= Margaret 



146 EDWARD I. [1292 

eration in the elder line nearer the throne than the second 
generation in the younger line ? Finally, on strictly feudal 
grounds, the claims of Bruce were rejected, and Balliol was 
declared king of an undivided Scotland. He was crowned at 
Scone in 1292. 

Thus far Edward had in the main acted with wisdom 
and uprightness, but now a new difficulty arose. Edward 
claimed, as feudal lord, the right to hear appeals from the 
court of Balliol in Scotland. Though Balliol submitted, the 
Scots deemed this claim an infringement on their national 
rights, and made it evident that should Edward persist in 
his claim they were prepared to resist. This was important 
not only because it affected Edward's relations with Scotland, 
but also because it involved him in a struggle with the Scots 
at a time when a serious struggle with France was imminent. 

110. Edward's Quarrel with France. — At this juncture 
trouble arose between the English and Norman fishermen in 
the English Channel, and Philip the Fair (IV) of France 
took up the quarrel. After a defeat of the Norman sailors 
off Brittany, in 1293, Philip summoned Edward, as duke of 
Guienne, and consequently his vassal, to answer for the deeds 
of his seamen. As Edward did not appear, Philip, by rather 
a doubtful strategy, seized Guienne, and refused to give it 
back. A war between the two kingdoms seemed unavoidable, 
and each king entered into alliances with the enemies of the 
other. Edward turned to the time-honored enemies of France, 
— the Emperor Adolph of Nassau, the king of Castile (Sancho 
IV), the prince of Savoy, and the counts of Flanders and 
Brabant, — while Philip turned to Edward's enemies at home, 
and not only entered into alliance with the Scots, promising 
to give Balliol his daughter in marriage, but also stirred up 
the Welsh, under one Madoc, who claimed to be the son of 
Llewellyn, to revolt. Thus, in 1294-1295, Edward was con- 
fronted from Scotland, France, and Wales at the same time. 
His resources were not at the moment sufficient for the 
threefold danger. In order to meet the situation lie had to 



1295] EDWARD'S REVENUE. 147 

increase his revenue and to gain the support of his people by 
calling a parliament of their representatives. 

111. Edward's Revenue. — Edward had received feudal reve- 
nues, had imposed scutages, and had been granted the custom- 
ary national taxes of the thirteenth century.^ But these had 
proved insufficient for the growing kingdom, and he had early 
found a new source of income. A brisk trade in wool, owing 
to the activity of the Cistercian order in England, had grown 
up with Flanders. On his way back to England, in 1274, he 
had negotiated a treaty with the Flemings, which had consid- 
erably enlarged the market for wool. England provided the 
raw material, while the Flemings worked it up into fine cloths. 
To this international trade Edward had given security, in 
1275, by fixing the amount of duty to be placed upon goods 
exported from England by the merchants, who were generally 
foreigners from Flanders or some of the German towns. His 
first parliament had granted him this duty for life: half a 
mark on each sack of wool, half a mark on each three hundred 
wool-fells, and a mark on each last^ of leather.^ This was 
another advantage to the merchants, in that it made unjust 
tolls (mala tolta) illegal. But even the returns from these 
new sources failed to meet his needs in the present emergency ; 
he was driven to high-handed methods to raise additional funds. 

1 We must distinguish between revenues and taxes: The royal revenues 
were fees, fines, rents from the royal demesnes, and payments commuting the 
old right of purveyance, as well as feudal dues in the form of reliefs and aids 
(Lee, No. 65 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 33). Class taxation, properly so called, 
began with Danegeld, and was exclusively levied on the landholders ; other 
similar taxes on lands were the dona, or gifts levied on the hide ; carucage 
(Adams and Stephens, No. 30), or so much on the carucate (one hundred 
acres); tallage, or the tax levied on the royal demesne and the towns: 
scutage, or the tax levied on those who owed military service (Adams and 
Stephens, No. 32). But most of these had ceased to be levied by the 
thirteenth century and had been replaced by a more strictly national, not 
class, taxation, which, in the form of an exaction of a tenth, a fifteenth, etc., 
levied on both land and personal property, had fallen more generally on all 
the nation (Adams and Stephens, No. 23, for an early assessment). 

2 A bundle of two hundred hides. ^ Adams and Stephens, No. 38. 



148 EDWARD I. [1295 

In 1294 he demanded of the clergy one-half of their goods; of 
the laity, one-sixth from those living in the boroughs and one- 
tenth from the rest. But still he was in sore straits. He could 
no longer exact money from the Jews, for, in 1290, he had cut 
off this source of supply by driving the Jews from England as a 
concession to the popular will.^ He had borrowed large sums of 
the Florentine and other Italian bankers and mortgaged his 
revenues for the payment. 

112. The Model Parliament. — To gain the support of his 
people and to raise money Edward summoned the famous par- 
liament of 1295. Up to this time, notwithstanding Earl Simon's 
innovation of 1265, neither knights nor burgesses were necessary 
to constitute a parliament. But Edward fully understood that 
feudalism was on the wane and that a feudal parliament com- 
posed only of tenants-in-chief was no longer abreast of the 
growing interests of the kingdom. So while summoning his 
barons as usual,^ he determined also to reach out and to bring 
into one body members of other than the feudal class, that is, 
members of the agricultural, clerical, and trading classes. 

There were many reasons for this decision. His legal mind 
was certainly impressed with the old K,oman doctrine, that 
" what touches all should be discussed by all," but he had other 
and more practical motives. He was in need of money and knew 
that the knights were wealthy landholders and that the towns 
were becoming the centres of trade and industry and con- 

1 On the Jews to 1206, see The Jeios of Angevin England, "by Jacobs, 
in English History from Contemporary Writers; Cunningham, English 
Industry and Commerce, Vol. I, pp. 192-195. On their expulsion, see Cun- 
ningham, Vol. I, pp. 265-267; Jenks, Edward I, pp. 325-326; Stephens, 
A Histonj of the English Church, Vol. II, pp. 20-22; Abrahams, The 
Expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 (1896). "The Jews . . . 
were expelled by a pious and moderate king, who yielded to the urgings of 
his friends and to political necessity. Their departure did not check the 
evils of which they were believed to be the cause ; and they must be looked 
upon as the victims of fanaticism." 

2 For the writ of summons, see Lee, No. 81, p. 182; Adam and Stephens, 
No. 46, p. 83 ; Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6 (Cheyney), p. 30; Ken- 
dall, No. 28. This writ was addressed to each baron by name. 



1295] THE MODEL PARLIAMENT. 149 

sequently of wealth. Therefore he summoned both knights 
and burgesses.^ He knew, too, that he must draw the clergy- 
more closely to him, if he were to checkmate the papal policy, 
taken up more vigorously than ever in his own day by Boniface 
VIII, of separation of the clergy from the laity, and of entire 
independence of the church in its convocations. Therefore he 
attached to the writs addressed to the bishops a separate clause, 
beginning with the word jpraemunientes, bidding each bring 
with him his prior or dean of the cathedral chapter, the arch- 
deacons of his diocese, one proctor or agent for his cathedral 
chapter, and two of his diocesan clergy.^ Thus there were 
present in this famous parliament two archbishops, eighteen 
bishops with their lesser clergy, sixty-six abbots, three heads 
of religious orders, nine earls, forty-one barons, sixty-three 
knights of the shire, and one hundred and seventy-two citizens 
and burgesses, about four hundred persons in all. Later the 
archdeacons, priors, proctors, and abbots ceased to attend; 
but in other respects for five centuries the legal form of this 
great national body remained unchanged. 

Yet it must not be supposed that this was a modern parlia- 
ment. The Model Parliament did nothing more than vote 
Edward a subsidy of one-eleventh of the goods of the nobility and 
the landowners and one-seventh of the goods of the burgesses. 
To grant money and to present petitions from the king's subjects 
were the functions of this and succeeding parliaments. But by 
fusing "the thousand diverse interests of shires and boroughs, 
clergy and laity, magnates and humble folk, into one national 
whole," it " made possible the existence of national legislation." 

1 For the writ of summons, see Lee, No. 81, p. 183; Adams and Stephens, No. 
46, p. 83 ; Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6 (Cheyney) , p. 31 ; Colby, No. 
34 ; Kendall, No. 28. This writ was addressed to the sheriffs of the county, bid- 
ding them cause the required number of knights and burgesses to be elected. 
For the towns sending representatives in 1297, see Translations and Reprints, 
Vol. II, No. 1, p. 37. 

2 For the writ of summons, see Lee, No. 81 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 46; 
Gee and Hardy, No. XXX; Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6 (Chey- 
ney)* PP- 29, 30. This writ was addressed to each bishop by name. 



150 EDWARD I. [1296 

113. Submission of Scotland. — With the money thus granted 
by a parliament of the English people. Edward turned to face 
the threatening danger. Having captured Madoc in the winter 
of 1294-1295,^ he took up the campaign in the north, where the 
Scots were already asserting their independence, and where 
Balliol, having entered into an alliance with Philip of France, 
had sent John Comyn, a son of his brother-in-law, to invade 
Cumberland. In 1296 Edward led an army northward; captured 
the frontier fortress Berwick, and on April 27 defeated the 
Scottish army at Dunbar and captured the castle. Step by 
step Edward advanced until, after mau}^ adventures, Balliol 
gave himself up and was dealt with as a feudal vassal who had 
broken his contract. Edward declared the kingdom itself for- 
feited. He marched as a conqueror through the land, carried 
off from Scone the ancient coronation stone, and treated the 
land as a fallen fief. Scotland seemed to be as thoroughly 
conquered as Wales had been ; but Edward, with extraordinary 
blindness, failed to see that there was a national feeling in Scot- 
land as well as in England, and that the time was past when 
the Scots could with impunity be handed over like the tenantry 
of an estate from one feudal lord to another.^ 

114. Edward's Quarrel with the Papacy. — Edward was now 
ready to face the troubles on the Continent. A double expe- 
dition was planned: one part under Edward himself, to land 
in Flanders and to cooperate with the count of Flanders, who 
next to Edward, himself duke of Guienne, was Philip IV's chief 
feudal enemy; the other, under Eoger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, 
to go directly to Gascony in southern France. 

But money was still wanting. Edward summoned a parlia- 
ment in November, 1296, which made a grant of a twelfth of 
their goods ; but when he demanded a grant from the clergy, 
the latter, headed by Archbishop Winchelsey, refused to vote a 
penny. It was evident that a new obstacle had arisen. What 



1 Edwards, Wales, pp. 212-214, 

2 On the fighting qualities of the Scots, see Kendall, No. 29. 



1296] TROUBLE WITH THE BARONS. 151 

this was soon appeared. In February, 1296, Boniface VIII 
had issued a famous bull, Clericis Laicos,'^ directed to the clergy 
of both France and England, forbidding them to make any 
grant whatsoever to the state without the authority of the 
Holy See. Philip had replied by decreeing that no subject of 
his should send any gold, silver, or jewels out of his kingdom to 
Kome. Edward's reply was even more startling. As the pope 
had threatened to excommunicate any one who disobeyed the 
command of the spiritual father, so Edward declared that 
he would outlaw any one who disobeyed the command of the 
temporal lord. If the church could, by excommunication, place 
any of the faithful beyond the pale of her protection, so the 
state could by outlawry place any of its members outside the 
limits of its own tribunals. An outlawed clerk was helpless. 
The king's courts would not protect him, the church courts 
could not. The English clergy had cause to be frightened; 
and though as a body they refused to yield, as individuals they 
finally promised to pay their quota, and actually paid in the 
end double the amount that Edward had originally demanded. 
The state had become stronger than the church in England.^ 

115. Trouble with the Barons : Statute of Quia Emptores. — 
Edward's war with France had thus far brought little fight- 
ing, but much trouble. Wales, Scotland, and the clergy had 
taken advantage of the occasion and had resisted the king, 
only in the end to suffer for their temerity. And now the 
earls and barons were to try their hand at resistance. Ever 
since the quo warranto inquiry of 1278-1279 the great lords 
had struggled to retain as many of their privileges as possible ; 
and in obtaining the Statute of Entails in 1285 had in part 
gained their object. In 1290 another attempt to preserve their 
lands and their revenues had been made. 



1 Henderson, Documents, p. 432; Adams and Stephens, No. 47; Gee and 
Hardy, No. XXXI. 

2 An admirable account of this struggle may he found in Capes, Vol. HI 
of J. History of the English Church, Chap. H, and in Jenks, Edward I, 
pp. 269-273 



152 EDWARD I. [1290 

Tenants-in-chief had been accustomed to subinfeudate or 
alienate portions of their land for the purpose of obtaining 
knights to meet their military obligations; but they did not 
expect that the tenants who received the land from them 
would subinfeudate portions of these lands to others without 
gaining their consent. This, however, had been done in a 
great many cases, and as a result the tenants-in-chief had 
frequently lost the feudal dues arising from these lands, 
because their tenants and the new sub-tenants could never 
agree as to which should pay them. The royal courts had 
rather favored the practice of subinfeudation, because the 
conditions of trade and commerce demanded easy and frequent 
transfers of land. It would never do in a growing state for 
land to be tied up in the hands of a few. The barons, caring 
more about their feudal dues than about the needs of the 
people at large, tried to stop the practice, and in the parlia- 
ment of 1290 had requested the king to promulgate a statute 
forbidding subinfeudation. 

The king consented, but caused the new statute to be so 
worded as wholly to alter the intent of the barons' request. 
Quia Emptores, or the Third Statute of Westminster,^ recognized 
the hardships of subinfeudation, and said that the tenant who 
alienated or sold the land he held of another should resign all 
rights over the land thus sold. This meant that in case B 
sold to C land which he held of A, C became the tenant not of 
B, but of A. The barons thought at first that they had gained 
their point ; but when the statute went into operation, they dis- 
covered that it worked both ways, and that what affected their 
tenants affected also themselves as tenants of the king. Over 
lands that they themselves alienated, they lost all their feudal 
rights. This application of the statute might not have affected 
them so seriously had they been able to avoid selling their 
lands. But with the decay of feudalism and the decrease in 
the value of land, the alienation or sale of their unentailed 

1 Lee, No. 88; Adams and Stephens, No. 45; Henderson, Documents, p. 149. 



J297] STATUTE OF QUIA EMPTORES. 153 

lands became almosjb an economic necessity. As agriculture 
became less profitable, they could no longer afford to hold 
together their great estates, and had often to sell them out- 
right. The purchasers became at once the tenants of the 
king. 

Two results followed : the number of those who held directly 
of the king increased rapidly, and this increase lowered the 
social and political importance of the tenants-in-chief as a 
class ; at the same time, as more and more land came to be 
held directly of the king, the matter of buying and selling land 
was simplified and made easy. This condition tended to break 
down the whole mediaeval land system, and so hastened the 
destruction of feudalism.' 

The discontent of the barons increased as they saw in the 
years following 1290 the actual bearing of the statute Quia 
Emptores. In 1297 they believed that the opportunity had 
come for revenge. When Edward announced in that year that 
those who owed him military service must go to Gascony, the 
two men whom he designated as the leaders of the expedition, 
the earl of Norfolk, the marshal, and the earl of Hereford, the 
constable, refused, saying that their service was only about the 
person of the king, and that they would not go to Gascony 
without him. Edward in anger turned on the Earl Marshal, 
saying, with an oath, " Sir Earl, thou shalt go or hang ! '' To 
which the earl replied, " By the same oath, I will neither go 
nor hang," and both earls withdrew from the royal presence 
with the design of raising an army to war against the king. 
In this, perhaps the most dangerous crisis in his career as 
king, Edward appealed to the remaining barons, the clergy, 
and the citizens of London. Before a great gathering at West- 
minster, July 14, 1297, he pleaded his cause and showed that 
he was acting for the public good. The men in the assembly 
stood loyally by him ; and he, trusting in the oath they then 



1 See Jenks, Edward I, pp. 274-275 ; Pollock and Maitland, History of 
English Law (2d ed.), Vol. I, pp. 337-339. 



154 EDWARD I. [1297 

took to support him to the death, set out for Flanders, scorn- 
ful of what the earls might do. 

116. Confirmation of the Charters. — But notwithstanding the 
loyalty of the clergy, lesser barons, and citizens at Westmin- 
ster, the discontent was too widespread to be so easily dispelled. 
Besides the barons, the merchants had their grievance, for 
Edward had seized their wool in 1294, and again in 1297, when 
he had demanded, in addition to the customs duty granted 
in 1275, a "maletolte," or tax of forty shillings on every 
fifth sack. The continued resistance of the barons and the 
merchants, the pleadings of the clergy, led by Archbishop 
Winchelsey, and Edward's desire to compromise in order to 
obtain the money needed for the expedition to Flanders, led 
the king to perform that great constitutional act known as 
the Confirmation of the Charters. This he did in Ghent, on 
November 5, 1297. He promised " to keep in every point with- 
out breach " the Charter of Liberties and the Charter of the 
Forest, affirming that all judgments contrary to them should 
be null and void; that the charters should be read twice a 
year to the people; and that all who broke them should be 
excommunicated. 

Through the influence of the barons and the merchants three 
far-reaching clauses were added. The king declared that the 
aids, tasks, and prises * demanded in recent years should not 
be deemed a precedent for the future ; that the " maletolte '* 
of wool should be released, though the customs granted in 
1275 should be paid as usual ; and lastly, that thenceforth no 
corn, wool, leather, or other goods should be seized or " male- 
toltes " taken, under any circumstances, and that no tallages 
should be levied on the towns but by the common consent of 
therealm.^ This meant that henceforth parliament was to 
control the levying of feudal dues and customs duties and all 

1 Aids = feudal aids, scutage, etc. ; tasks = grants of tenths, fifteenths, and 
the like ; prises = customs dues and purveyance. 

2 Lee, Nos. 82, 83, 84; Adams and Stephens, Nos. 48, 49; Translations and 
Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6 (Cheyney), pp. 17, 18. 



1298] THE SCOTTISH WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 155 

general taxation. The king continued to levy tallages on the 
crown lands, but even this right was given up forty years 
later.^ 

117. Peace with France. — Edward's business with Flanders 
was soon finished. The Flemish were angry with the king for 
tampering with the wool trade, and gave him little help against 
France. Therefore he patched up a truce with Philip, June 
27, 1298. This happy outcome was effected by the mediation 
of Boniface VIII, acting not as pope, but as i^lain Benedict 
Cajetan, a pleasant fiction that enabled Edward to accept the 
services of the pope without acknowledging his claims. Rec- 
ompense was made for damages; and in 1299 Edward married, 
as his second wife, Margaret, eldest sister of Philip, and his 
son was betrothed to Isabella, Philip's daughter. The terms 
were not wholly satisfactory to Philip, but a later event ren- 
dered him powerless to reopen the conflict. The peace with- 
drew from Flanders the support of Edward, and Philip 
immediately annexed that territory. But in 1302 the Flemish 
burghers defeated him in the battle of Courtrai, and not only 
demonstrated the superiority of the burgher infantry over the 
heavy armed cavalry of feudalism, but also made necessary the 
acceptance of the truce as permanent. At Chartres, in 1303, 
Philip gave back Guienne ; and Edward in his turn acknowl- 
edged the full sovereignty of the French king over the duchy. 

118. The Scottish War of Independence. — Scotland was 
already in arms. Maddened by Edward's treatment of them 
after Dunbar, by the tyranny of his officials, and by the 
introduction among them of foreign soldiers, the Scots were 
ready to fight for their national independence. A national 
champion, William Wallace, made himself the leader of an 
uprising, and had already, September 11, 1297, won a vic- 
tory at Cambuskenneth, near Stirling, over Edward's viceroy 
in Scotland, Earl of Warenne, him of the ready sword in 

1 Medley, English Constitutional History, pp. 50-51; Adams and Stephens, 
No. 59. 



156 EDWARD I. [1298 

the quo warranto inquiry. Wallace was neither an outlaw 
and freebooter, as some have said, nor yet the hero that 
romance has made him. He was a knight of good family, 
a rough warrior, who in this emergency found scope for 
his gifts as a leader.^ His followers increased in num- 
ber until he was able to dash across the border and to 
sweep Northumberland with fire and sword. Edward, return- 
ing from France, gathered an army at York, and entering 
Scotland defeated Wallace at Falkirk, in a battle where the 
new bowmen won the day (July 22, 1298). But the Scots 
would not yield, and until 1303 the struggle continued. At last, 
after the final treaty had been made with Philip IV, Edward 
turned on the Scots, drove all before him, and for the second 
time subdued the country. Wallace was betrayed in 1305 
and cruelly executed as a traitor; Scotland was divided into 
counties, aiid provision was made for representation in the 
English parliament. 

But still Scotland was unsubdued. For the third time 
insurrection broke out, and this time the leader was Eobert 
Bruce, the grandson of the old claimant.^ Unable to persuade 
Comyn, nephew of Balliol and late regent, to join him, Bruce 
slew Comyn, and fleeing northward, was crowned king of Scot- 
land at Scone in 1306. Again Edward gathered his forces, 
again did he push forward at the head of an army to the north ; 
but this time the hand of death was upon him. Unduly harsh 
in his treatment of the Scots, and forgetting that what he 
was facing was a national uprising, not a feudal revolt, he 
roused in those last days a bitter feeling of resentment among 
the Scots, and made Bruce the national champion of Scot- 
land. At Burgh-on-Sands, Edward died, July 17, 1307, with a 
last injunction to his barons to bury his heart in the Holy 
Land, and to his son to continue the advance against the 
Scots, bearing his bones in the very front of the line. Thus 
died one of the greatest of English kings. 

1 Colby, No. 35, A. 2 Colby, No. 36, B. 



1314] MISGOVERNMENT OF EDWARD II. 157 

119. Edward II and the Scots. — But the young Edward, 
the most thriftless king that ever sat on an English throne, 
had no heart for war, and disregarding his father's word, 
turned back from Scotland. The Scottish nobility, who had 
thus far remained loyal to England, resenting the cowardliness 
of the king, joined in increasing numbers the forces of Bruce. 
The latter captured one Scottish stronghold after another. 
Perth, Edinburgh, and Roxburgh fell into his hands, and 
finally, in 1314, he advanced to the siege of Stirling. Then 
Edward, who during these years had been displaying his in- 
competence as king, was shamed into action. Gathering an 
army of twenty thousand foot and three thousand horse from 
the northern shires, he advanced to the relief of Stirling. On 
the field of Bannockburn,^ within sight of the walls of Stirling 
castle, the battle was fought, June 24, 1314, which won for the 
Scots their independence, and postponed union with England 
for four hundred years. In the most disgraceful defeat it 
ever suffered, the English army was driven southward in flight, 
and Eobert Bruce became undisputed king of Scotland. 

120. Misgovernment of Edward II: his Deposition. — The 
reign of Edward II was a long-continued struggle by the barons 
to check the bad government of the king and his favorites. 
Edward, too indolent and indifferent to carry the burden of 
government, gave the control of affairs first into the hands 
of Pierre Gaveston (or Gabaston), a Gascon knight, whom 
he created earl of Cornwall, and invested with honors and 
estates.^ Affronted by this insult, the barons, in 1310, banded 
together against the favorite and set up a regency, something 
like that established in the Provisions of Oxford, the members 
of which were called the " Lords Ordainers." In the conflict 
that ensued Edward was forced to submit and to banish 
Gaveston. The regency issued a body of ordinances, redressing 
grievances and limiting the powers of the king.^ At first the 



1 Frazer, English History from Original Sources, Nos. 5-7. 

2 Frazer, Nos. 1-3. » Frazer, No. 4 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 51. 



158 EDWARD II. [1320 

king assented, but later he revoked his promises and restored 
his favorite to power. Thereupon the lords, gathering their 
forces, besieged Scarborough, where Gaveston lay, and seizing 
the favorite, put him to death. They then reestablished the 
regency, with Thomas of Lancaster at its head. 

Edward, though thoroughly discredited by the defeat of Ban- 
nockburn, succeeded once more in regaining his power in 1320, 
and turned upon Lancaster. The latter, who had totally failed 
as a ruler, was defeated at Boroughbridge (March, 1322), and 
being seized by the king, was beheaded with many others of 
the baronial party.^ Edward again revoked the ordinances^ 
and began his rule of favorites, this time with a certain Hugh 
Despenser, son of a justiciar who had been slain at Evesham. 
So insolent was the new favorite, that again the barons rose 
against the king. 

The head of the baronial party was now a certain Eoger 
Mortimer, an exile, who had been driven from England in 
1322. He won over the queen, Isabella, and at first fought 
ostensibly in behalf of the son of Edward, a child of four- 
teen years. Around him gathered the discontented English 
barons. The Despensers were seized and hanged ; and finally 
Edward himself, captured in Wales, was deposed and placed in 
confinement. He died in 1327, probably put to death by his 
keepers; and his son, Edward III, became king under the 
regency of Koger Mortimer.^ 

121. Mortimer and the Young Edward. — England never sank 
lower than during the four years when Isabella and Eoger 
Mortimer governed the kingdom in the name of the young 
king."* Mortimer made a "shameful peace" with the Scots, 
whereby entire independence was granted iheni,"'and beUuthed 
the daughter of Edward II to David Bruce, the son of Robert. 
He put down with bloody cruelty two uprisings in behalf oi 
the deposed Edward (1329-1330). But the rule of the queen- 

1 Frazer, No. 12. •* Frazer, No. 18. 

2 Frazer, No. 14 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 53. 6 Frazer, No. 20. 
« Frazer, Nos. 15-17 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 55. 



1330] MORTIMER AND THE YOUNG EDWARD. 159 

mother and Mortimer was short lived. In 1330 the young 
Edward, then eighteen years old, asserted his right, and seiz- 
ing Mortimer, had him honorably tried and executed.* There- 
upon Edward himself became king. 

References for Chapter VII. — Miss Norgate has continued her 
history by writing a detailed account of the years from 1216 to 1227, 
under the title, The Minority of Henry III (1912) and Tout has con- 
tributed the third vohime of the Political History, carrying the subject 
to 1377. A readable but not very critical account of Henry Ill's reign is 
Richardson's The National Movement in the Reign of Henry III (1897). 
Cardinal Gasquet has written on Henry III and the Church (1905), a 
study of the king's ecclesiastical policy and of the relations between Eng- 
land and Rome. Another and somewhat different version is given by 
Stephens in the second volume of A History of the English Church. A 
volume of the English History from Contemporary Writers Series, The 
Misrule of Henry III and Miss Johnstone's A Hundred Years of History, 
1216-1327 (1912), a collection of sources, may be used to advantage. 
Jenks's Edward I (1902), in the Heroes of the Nations Series, is an 
admirable popular account of the work of the great king. It contains 
chapters on England in the thirteenth century and the Barons' War. 
Exceptionally valuable work has recently been done on the reign of 
Edward II, notably Tout's The Place of the Reign of Edward II in Eng- 
lish History (1914) and Davies' The Baronial Opposition to Edward II 
(1918), both of which lay stress on the constitutional importance of the 
reign. Dodge has written Piers Gaveston (1899), a work of slight value 
from a critical standpoint. 

For all that relates to the condition of the church and the rise of the 
friars, see Lea's History of the Inquisition (1888), Vol. I ; and for 
religious life among the people, Cutts's Parish Priests and their People 
in the Middle Ages in England (1895). The relations of England with 
Flanders are important from this time on. Button's James and Philip 
Van Artevelde is useful, but Ashley's work with the same title is better. 
For the Welsh campaigns, see Edwards's Wales (1902) and, more elab- 
orate and scholarly, Lloyd's A History of Wales from the Earliest Times 
to the Edwardian Conquest, 2 vols. (2d ed. 1914). For Irish life and 
society at this time, see Joyce's A Social History of Ancient Ireland, 
2 vols. (2d ed. 1913). Hume Brown's History of Scotland, Vol. I 
(1900-1909, illustrated ed. 1915), contains an excellent account of the 
relations of Edward I and Edward II with that land. 

1 Frazer, No. 22. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. EDWARD III AND 
RICHARD II. 

122. Character of the New Era. — The reign of Edward I 
in England, as of Philip IV in France, marks the beginning 
of the end of the Middle Ages. Mediseval institutions were 
passing away. The great mediaeval empire, founded by Charles 
the Great (800) and revived by Otto I (962), had steadily lost 
in prestige and power after the death of the last of the Hohen- 
staufen emperors, Frederick II, in 1250. The great mediaeval 
church, the strongest and most influential of all institutions 
during the Middle Ages, which Gregory VII and Innocent III 
had placed higher in authority than kings and princes, was on 
the eve of a great downfall. The last upholder of the papal 
claim to temporal as well as spiritual supremacy, Boniface VIII, 
had been struck down at Anagni (1303) by Italian knights, as 
a result of the quarrel with Philip IV; and before the reign 
of Edward II had completed its course, the popes had taken 
up their residence in France at Avignon, there to remain for 
seventy years. 

The influence of the church began to decline : bishops and 
priests became more secular and worldly ; the lesser clergy 
lost their hold on the people; the teachings of the church 
no longer dominated the minds of men, and the com- 
mands of the pope were no longer heeded ; kings were no 
longer willing to direct their energies to the strengthening of 
the church, as had St. Louis of France, or to bow to its 
authority, as had the Emperor Henry IV in the penance at 
Canossa in 1077 and King Henry II in the flagellation at the 

160 



t 



1327-1399] CHARACTER OF THE NEW ERA. 161 

tomb of Becket. The people, too, could see without super- 
stitious dread a pope struck down in 1303; and before a 
century had passed, an archbishop of Canterbury murdered 
in London (1381). The Crusades no longer interested the 
leaders in the West. Kings in England, France, and Christian 
Spain were engaged in building up strong, centralized states, 
not in fighting Turks in the Holy Land. Royal aims be- 
came national. Kings were becoming more powerful, because 
they were substituting their law for the old feudal customs, 
and were taking into their own hands control of justice and 
finance. They founded schools of law, and in the place of 
feudal lords took lawyers for their advisers. In the adminis- 
tration of government they began to employ legal methods and 
forms. 

Feudalism as a political force was passing away, though it 
was leaving its impress upon every part of the social struc- 
ture. The new age was secular and political, rather than 
religious and feudal. Foreign relations assumed a new im- 
portance, diplomatic correspondence began, reports became 
more exact and precise, and ambassadors increased in num- 
ber. Wars became national ; battles were transformed into 
campaigns. Administration became more complicated as 
power became centralized in the hands of the kings ; ex- 
penses doubled ; revenues were increased by the taxing of new 
sources of wealth; commerce and trade were rapidly advanc- 
ing to a position of equal importance with agriculture. 

In England the period of the fourteenth century covered 
by the reigns of Edward III (1327-1377) and Richard II 
(1377-1399) was one of great contrasts. On one side were 
useless foreign wars, chivalry, luxury, and display among the 
nobility; extortion, corruption, and bad government among 
the administrators and political leaders ; moral decay and 
worldliness among the higher clergy; and spiritual degen- 
eracy among the monks and parish priests who stood nearest 
to the masses of the people. On the other side was great 
suffering among the people, due to plague and famine, to 



162 EDWARD III. [1329 

official oppression and abuses ; social unrest and excitement, 
due to the breaking down of the old agricultural system and 
the passing away of the old serfdom; religious unrest, due 
to loss of faith in the old doctrines and forms; economic 
unrest, due to the shifting of population from country to 
town, where centred the new commercial activity; and in 
general, an unsettled condition of society which shows that 
the era was one of change. 

123. Wars with Scotland and France: the Beginning of the 
Hundred Years' War. — For thirty years a state of war had 
existed between England and Scotland. In 1329, fifteen years 
after the battle of Bannockburn, Eobert Bruce died, and his 
son, a child but live years old, came to the throne as David II, 
under a regency. Immediately Edward Balliol, son of the old 
John Balliol, sought to become the king of Scotland, and 
appealed to Edward III for aid. To this appeal the English 
king responded, and in the battle of Halidon Hill, 1333,^ won 
a victory over the Scots. He placed Balliol on the Scottish 
throne, and received from him feudal homage. Balliol became 
a vassal of the king of England.^ In his turn, David Bruce 
fled to France, and there enlisted the aid of Philip VI, the 

THE CLAIM OF EDWARD III. 

to the throne of France. 
Philip III, King of France 

1270-1285 
I 

I 1 

Philip IV Charles of Valois 



I 1 1 I 

Margaret = Louis X = Clemen tia Isabella= Edward II Philip V Charles IV Philip VI 

of Burgundy I 1314-1316 I of Hiinprary I of England 1316-1322 1322-1328 1328 

Jeanne = Philip of John Edward III 

Evreux d. 1316 King of England 
lived but 
four days 
Charles of 
Navarre 

1 Frazer, Nos. 23, 24. 2 Fiazer, No. 25. 






1336] BEGINNING OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 163 

new king of the Valois house. Philip was not unwilling to 
aid the young David in restoring the independence of Scot- 
land; but his real object was to provoke Edward into war 
with France. He wished not merely to prevent the annex- 
ation of Scotland to England, but to obtain, if possible, an op- 
portunity of driving the English from Gascony and Guienne, 
and, by seizing these fiefs, to enlarge his own kingdom. He 
was a true successor of Philip II and Philip IV. 

Edward was more than ready to take up the challenge. He 
had been king for nine years and was prosperous, and parlia- 
ment was eager to support him. He was ambitious and full of 
warlike projects, and saw in a war with France an opportunity 
for adventure and fame. Not content with the pretext that 
Philip had offered in his alliance with the patriotic Scots, he 
made war inevitable by laying claim to the French throne as 
the son of Isabella, the daughter of Philip IV. 

But Edward, too, as well as Philip, had a deeper motive, a 
determination to further the commercial interests of his realm. 
To lose Gascony was to sacrifice not only a fief long held by 
his predecessors, but also a great wine-growing district that 
brought wealth to England. Should he succeed in a war 
against France, he would be able to protect English fishermen 
in the Channel and to bind more closely to England the 
Flemish weavers, the chief customers of the English wool 
merchants. Edward had strengthened his relations with the 
Flemings by marrying a Flemish princess, Philippa of 
Hainault. He now still further won their support by assum- 
ing, in 1340, rather at their request than from any desire of 
his own, the arms and the title of the king of France. 
In so doing he declared himself the feudal lord of the 
Flemings, and broke the feudal bond which had existed be- 
tween the king of France and the king of England since 
the Norman Conquest.^ 

1 Frazer, Nos. 28, 29, 32, 33. A good study of Edward's reasons for claim- 
ing the throne and assuming the title will be found in Report of American 
Historical Association, 1900, pp. 537-573. 



164 



EDWARD III. 



[1340 



124. Parliament and the Revenues. — It was fortunate for 
Edward that parliament favored the war, for, since the con- 
firmation of the charters, kings of England had to depend 
upon that body for an important part of their revenues. 

Parliament had undergone some important changes since 
1295, when Edward summoned his people to meet him at West- 
minster. Then parliament had been composed of three estates, 
the clergy, the nobility, and the commons. But sometime 




Seals of Edward III 

before and after the assumption of the arras of France. On the seal to the 
left are the arms first borne by Richard when on the crusades. On the seal 
to the right may be noticed in addition the royal tleur de lis of France. 



during the ensuing half-century it had ceased to be an assem- 
bly of estates and had separated into two houses. The clergy, 
as such, had ceased to attend, preferring to make their grant of 
money in their own convocation. The knights, sometime about 
1330, had turned away from the nobles, to whom by origin they 
belonged, and had joined the burgesses. The reason for this is 
probably to be found in the fact that the knights who came 
from the shires saw their interests to be identical with those 
of the burgesses rather than with those of the higher nobles, 
who in Edward Ill's reign were already forming a separate social 
caste, closely attached to the court and the king. The knights, 
furthermore, were summoned by general writ addressed to the 



I 



1336-1340] SOURCES OF EDWARD'S WEALTH. 165 

sheriff, and so, like the burgesses, were an elected body ; while 
the lords were summoned individually by writs addressed to 
them by name. Thus, by 1332 we find two houses, instead of 
three estates : a House of Lords, composed of the barons and 
greater clergy, the latter of whom sat, not as ecclesiastics, 
but as spiritual lords; and a House of Commons, composed of 
the knights and the burgesses.^ 

For carrying on the war, parliament made large grants : 
between 1336 and 1340 it voted a fifteenth from the knights 
and barons, a tenth from the towns, and a tenth from the 
clergy ; in 1336 a wool tax of forty shillings a sack ; in 1338 
half the wool of the kingdom ; in 1339 the ninth lamb, the 
ninth fleece, the ninth sheaf. In return, Edward made conces- 
sions. He abolished Englishry 2 and the right of purveyance,^ 
and consented that parliament should impose all taxes and 
should see how the money was spent> But parliament was 
inexperienced as a national council, and did not hold the king 
very strictly to his promises. 

125. Sources of Edward's Wealth. — What were the sources 
of wealth that made it possible for parliament to vote such 
heavy grants for the French war ? We have been speaking of 
towns, burgesses, and wool. These words show that new eco- 
nomic interests were growing up side by side with the old 
agriculture. Up to this time the towns, which were the cen- 
tres of trade, had aimed to keep the control of the business in 
their own hands, in order to prevent outsiders, or " foreigners," 
from getting a share of it. Soon after the Conquest, merchant 
gilds had sprung up in the majority of towns, and each gild 
regulated, with great minuteness, trade and industry of every 



1 For an admirable statement of the way separation came about, see Pollard 
in History, April, 1918, pp. 32-34. 

2 This was the obligation resting on the hundred, if it wished to escape a 
heavy fine, to prove, in case of murder, that the murdered man was an 
Englishman. William the Conqueror had made the hundred responsible for 
the murder of Normans. (See p. 75.) Adams and Stevens, No. 58. 

3 Adams and Stevens, No. 78. 4 Adams and Stevens, Nos. 59, 61. 



166 EDWARD III. [1335 

kind within the town.^ Ko one not a member of the gild could 
do business in the town except under rigid conditions. Trade 
and commerce were entirely under the control of the town, 
that is, they were managed neither by individuals as such nor 
by the state. In the reign of Edward III the merchant gild 
began to give place to the craft gilds, of which there might 
be many in each town,^ whereas there was never more than one 
merchant gild. The chief difference between these gilds lay 
in this, that the merchant gild controlled all the trading 
interests of the town, while each craft gild dealt only with its 
own particular industry. In time the craft gilds supplanted 
the merchant gild, and became equally exclusive and narrow 
in their policy. Trade still remained under the control of the 
towns, which in the fourteenth century were the chief centres 
of wealth in the kingdom. 

The towns did business, of course, with other English towns, 
but they also traded with towns abroad. As yet, however, the 
English had no merchant ships and never went themselves 
to foreign cities, so that all buying and selling abroad was 
done by aliens. Furthermore, the right to engage in such for- 
eign trade was conferred on certain specially favored aliens. 
The merchants of Flanders and northern France enjoyed a 
monopoly of the trade, and lived in England at the Steelyard, 
a fortified group of buildings in London on the bank of the 
Thames. Some of the privileges were later conferred on mer- 
chants of the Baltic cities composing the Hanseatic League. 
Edward III encouraged aliens to bring goods to England, and 
in 1335, granted freedom of trade to all outsiders. This un- 
usually liberal policy was probably due to Edward's desire to 
increase his revenue from the customs, and to make it easier 
to negotiate loans from the aliens, while waiting for the money 
granted by parliament to be collected. But his scheme was 

1 For documents illustrating the merchant gild, see Translations and Re- 
prints, Vol. II, No. 1 (Cheyney, " English Towns and Gilds "), § IH. 

2 Translations and Reprints, Vol. II, No. 1 (Cheyney, *' English Towns and 

C}ild8"),§§III, IV. 



1341-1363] THE WAR WITH FRANCE. 1&7 

premature ; England was not ready for so free a trade, and the 
policy was reversed in 1392. 

At the same time Edward sought to regulate a new export- 
ing business that had grown up under his grandfather. For 
convenience, merchants were sending the most important or 
staple goods, such as wool, hides, leather, and tin, to one Con- 
tinental city, whence they were dispersed. Tins gathering of 
exports in one city had many advantages ; the goods in transit 
were more easily protected against pirates,^ the customs duties 
were more conveniently levied, and the business of buying and 
selling was more readily carried on. The men who exported 
these commodities were called Staplers, and the city to which 
they sent them was called the Staple. At first Edward tried 
a plan similar to that adopted toward aliens in England, that 
is, he abolished the Staple and allowed English merchants to 
send their wool and other commodities where they pleased. 
But this plan did not work well, and in 1338 he made Antwerp 
and, in 1340, Bruges foreign staple towns. Eight years after, he 
made Calais the staple for tin, lead, feathers, and woolen cloth, 
and in 1353^ substituted for Bruges ten towns in England, Ire- 
land, and Wales, as staples for wool and leather. From this time 
until 1557, when it was taken by the French, Calais remained 
the only continental staple town. In 1557 the staple was re- 
moved to Holland, where it remained until abolished in 1617. 

The increasing wealth of the towns, largely due to the ex- 
pansion of foreign trade, the greater revenue derived from 
export and import duties, and the rising credit of the king- 
dom, which made the negotiating of loans easier, gave Edward 
the money that he needed to carry on the French war. 

126. The War with France. — In the actual prosecution of 
the war, Edward was supported in part by the old feudal army 
and in part by the native yeomanry of England. The lords, 
who composed the cavalry, threw themselves into the war as 



1 For a description of a convoy, see Frazer, No. 26. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 74. 



168 EDWARD III. [1340 

if it were but a tournament governed by the rules of chivalry. 
Knights were eager for adventure ; even ladies followed the 
armies to bestow their favors on successful warriors. But the 
most important part of Edward's army was national, not feudal, 
in character. The men of the Assize of Arms and the Statute 
of Winchester, that is, the freemen, armed with lances, bows 
and arrows, and other weapons, made up the infantry. These 
yeomen, though often unwillingly pressed into service, formed 
an efficient military force, the like of which was unknown on 
the Continent. 

The beginning of English victory was the naval battle of 
Sluys (1340), which was fought between the English and the 
French fleets off the Flemish coast, and resulted in the 
destruction of the French navy.^ Edward then determined on 
an invasion of France, and in 1346 landed on the coast at 
Cherbourg. After pushing his way inland, — a dangerous 
venture, for without connection with the seacoast he was in 
constant danger of being cut off and surrounded in a hostile 
land by the enemy's forces, — he was brought to bay by 
Philip, near the little town of Crecy, August 26, 1346. Here 
a famous battle was fought, in which the English archers won a 
victory over the feudal army of the French king. The bowmen 
placed in the front of the battle first shot down mercilessly 
the Genoese mercenaries, and then repelled every advance of 
the armed feudal cavalry. In this battle the fifteen-year-old 
Black Prince (of Wales) — so called, it may be, from the black 
armor he wore — won his spurs and the honor of knighthood.^ 
The battle of Crecy testifies to the insight of the kings who 
armed and organized the commons of England as a fighting 
force more powerful than the feudal array and the mercenaries 
of either England or France. 

From Crecy, Edward advanced to Calais and besieged it. 
Philip was unable to relieve the city, and David Bruce, his 



1 Frazer, Nos. 30, 31. 

2 Frazer, Nos. 38-40; Colby, No. 39; Kendall, No. 30. 



1360] THE TREATY OF BRETIGNY. 169 

ally, hoping to aid him by diverting the attention of Edward, 
invaded the northern counties of England. On October 17, 
1346, Bruce was defeated and captured at the battle of 
Neville's Cross, by Queen Philippa and the barons who had 
remained in England.* This disaster deprived Philip of aid 
from Scotland and made inevitable the fall of Calais. After 
holding out for a year, Calais was starved into surrender. It 
was taken August 4, 1347,^ and remained a possession of the 
English kings for more than two hundred years. 

The first period of the war ended with the capture of 
Calais, but in 1355 war was renewed. Philip had died in 1350, 
and his son John took up the struggle. At the same time the 
Scots renewed the attack from the north. In the summer of 
1355, Edward mercilessly devastated Lothian out of wrath 
against Scotland, while his son, the Black Prince, starting from 
Gascony, harried central France from Guienne to Poitiers. At 
the latter town the prince was confronted by a French army, 
larger than his own, under the command of John himself, and 
was compelled to fight for his life. But at Poitiers, as at 
Crecy, the English archers carried the day. King John was 
captured and the French forces completely defeated. The 
battle was fought on September 19, 1356.^ 

The succession of victories, the capture of King John, the 
ruin which had fallen on the country, forced the French to 
come to peace with the English. At Bretigny, in 1360, a treaty 
was signed. According to this treaty, Edward gave up his 
claim to the French throne and to all lands in northern France 
except Calais and Ponthieu and some other towns and castles. 
In return, he received the whole of the duchies of Gascony 
and Guienne, to be held by him henceforth in full sovereignty 
and no longer as a vassal of the French king, and in addition 
a ransom for the French king of three million gold crowns."* 
Three years before, he had made peace with Scotland, had 



1 Frazer, Nos. 41, 42 ; Kendall, No. 31. s Frazer, Nos. 51-54. 

2 Frazer, No. 43. * Frazer, No. 55. 



170 EDWARD III. [1360 

released David Bruce, and, in return for one hundred thousand 
marks ransom money and the towns of Berwick and Rox- 
burgh, acknowledged Bruce's title to the crown. 

127. The Position of Edward III. — In 1360 Edward seemed 
to be at the height of his success. Victor at Crecy, Calais, 
Neville's Cross, and Poitiers, the master of two kings, one of 
France and the other of Scotland, he had been able to dictate 
a peace which freed the English king from his vassalage to 
the king of France and which restored to the English crown 
lands in southern France that had been considered lost for- 
ever. His reign, thus far, had been a time of splendor and dis- 
play. French booty and money were poured into England, and 
luxury invaded the life of the court. Edward encouraged an 
artificial chivalry, which, with its Order of the Garter, the 
Thistle, and the Golden Fleece, its Round Table and Courts 
of Love, gave rise to a social caste far different from the truer 
feudal chivalry of the Crusades. Of this life Froissart and 
Chaucer wrote, the former describing its wars, diplomacy, and 
chivalry, in the familiar French language of the court ; the 
latter depicting the pleasures of its middle and upper classes, 
in his native English tongue.^ The contrast is striking. 
The wars with France were arousing national enthusiasm, the 
writings of Gower and Chaucer were giving wider currency to 
the humble English speech,^ and the battles of Crecy and 
Poitiers were raising the free English tenantry into an instru- 
ment of great military efficiency. On the other hand, the 
feudal nobility were becoming a social and political clique, 
feudal life was becoming stereotyped and unreal, and the 
chasm between the nobility and the people was becoming 
wider than ever. 



1 No one has brought this out more picturesquely than Taine, English Lit- 
erature, Book I, Chap. II, § V; Chap. Ill, §§ I-V. Compare also Goldwin 
Smith, The United Kingdom, Vol. I, pp. 210 ff., and Cornish, Chivalry (Social 
Science Series), 1901. 

2 English was now used for the first time in the law courts. Frazer, Part 
II, No. 1; also Nos. 2, 3; Adams and Stephens, No. 78. 



1349] THE BLACK DEATH. 171 

128. The Black Death.^ — In the period that intervened 
between the battles of Crecy and Poitiers a great epidemic 
spread over England, known as the Black Death. During the 
years 1348 and 1349, in consequence of this epidemic, it is 
estimated that from a third to a half of the population per* 
ished. The fearful disease spared no class of society, but fell 
most heavily upon the artisans in the towns, the agricultural 
laborers in the country, the monks, and the parish priests. 
At one time in London the mortality rose to two hundred a 
day ; in Norfolk two-thirds of the parish clergy died ; while 
in certain manors of from three to four hundred population, 
more than a hundred and fifty of the inhabitants were car- 
ried off. The tenantry of the abbey of Eamsey perished 
wholesale. England did not suffer more than did Italy and 
the Mediterranean coast lands, but the effects of the fright- 
ful mortality were probably greater in England than else- 
where, owing to the social conditions prevailing in that 
country. 

129. The Manorial System. — England at this time, outside 
of the great towns, was a land of manors. The vills and the 
villagers had been gradually coming under the authority of 
lords — manorial lords, of whom the highest was the king, the 
lowest a knight of the shire or some freeholder of the county, 
not of feudal rank. In the period before the Black Death, the 
depressing of the peasantry, which had gone steadily on since 
the Norman Conquest, reached its lowest point, and the lot of 
the peasant was hardest on the lands of the large religious 
houses like Ramsey, Ely, and Gloucester. All land in England 
was at this time supposedly under a lord. The obligation of 
the villagers, the peasants, to remain for life and to labor on 
their lord's lands by the thirteenth century prevailed through- 
out central and southern England. Such an obligation was 



1 Frazer, Nos. 44, 45; Colby, No. 40; Lee, No. 94; Translations and Re- 
prints, Vol. II, No. 5 (Cheyney, " England in the time of Wycliffe ")» pp. 2-3; 
Kendall, No. 33. 



172 



EDWARD III. 



[1349 




1349] 



THE MANORIAL SYSTEM. 



173 



necessary at this time. Feudal lords derived their wealth 
from their lands ; their lands had to be cultivated ; and inas- 
much as hired labor had hardly as yet come into existence, the 
only persons to cultivate them were the tenants. Upon the 
manors the methods of cultivation were for the most part 
everywhere the same.^ The villagers worked in the open fields, 
ploughed, sowed, and harvested, much as they had done for 



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A Village Street: Cottages in Godshill, Isle of Wight. 

centuries. A large portion of their time they devoted to the 
demesne lands, consisting of those strips in the great open fields 
that were held by the lord. They were required to make certain 
payments, some of which were regularly sent in for the sup- 
port of the lord ; others, such as cJievage,^ merchet,^ and the 



1 Read the description in Jeuks, Edward I, pp. 45-52; Jessopp, Coming of 
the Friars, 2d essay; Kendall, No. 32. 

2 Chevage was a small personal tax paid by the entire male population of 
the manor, as a symbol of the power of the lord. 

3 Merchet was a payment made whenever the daughter of the villein mar- 
ried. 



174 EDWARD III. [1349 

like, only occasionally, as the token of tlieir semi-servile condi- 
tion. The amount of both labor and payments was fixed by 
the custom of the manor. 

The king had many hundreds of manors ; the smallest " lord," 
perhaps but one. From the "works" and payments of his 
villeins, each landowner derived his means of support. The 
greater lords had numbers of officials, bailiffs, beadles, reeves, 
to manage their estates and to collect their revenues.^ They 
had courts also at which the tenants were bound to appear, 
and which represented an important part of their authority. 
The old manor court had begun to divide into the Court 
Leet and the Customary Court. The former met twice a year, 
and looked after the keeping of the peace and the punishing 
of minor breaches of the law; the latter dealt with matters 
connected with the manor only, and met every three weeks. 
Later, there separated from the Customary Court the Court 
Baron, which dealt only with questions of land tenure, and 
was attended only by the free tenants. The manors varied 
greatly in size, generally containing only one vill; but the 
boundaries of the manor were by no means always the same 
as the boundaries of the vill. There was no general rule or 
law governing the relations of lord and villeins. All was 
determined by local custom, " the custom of the manor." 

These conditions of villeinage prevailed in all the countries 
of western Europe, remaining longest in central Europe, and 
undergoing modifications in England and France at about the 
same time. The changes that indicate the transition from the 
mediaeval system of agriculture to one more modern were at 
this time but just beginning to appear, and were not to be com- 
pleted for a century and a half. But, in order to understand 
the effects of the Black Death, we must say a word about these 
changes here. Population was increasing, and land was grow- 

1 There are a number of thirteenth century treatises on the management of 
estates. They have been published by the Royal Historical Society, 1890, 
under the title of the best known of the writers, Walter of Henley, with a val- 
uable introduction by Dr. Cunningham. 



1349] STATUTE OF LABORERS. 175 

ing scarce. The old, wasteful methods of agriculture could 
not compete with the new conditions in trade and industry. 
The Crusades had increased the amount of money in circula 
tion, first in the towns and at coui't, and gradually in the 
country districts. Two results followed ; (1) lords let out 
their lands at a money rent to farmers, sometimes their own 
bailiffs, who tried to make a profit out of agriculture ; (2) many 
villeins began to commute their labor services for money, while 
others, attracted by the new opportunities in the towns, began 
to desert the manors. In order to fill their places, hired labor- 
ers, hitherto very rare, had to be obtained. Thus a new system 
of leased farms and paid labor began to be introduced into the 
agricultural organization. 

130. The Effects of the Black Death : Statute of Laborers. — The 
substitution of the hired laborer for the old villein had not 
by any means become general at the time of the Black Death, 
but "wages " instead of " works " had gained an important place. 
The effect of that great plague was to depopulate the manors, 
and at the same time to create a great scarcity in the supply 
of hired laborers. The demand for laborers remained the same, 
for the same amount of land had to be cultivated, and the lords 
refused to relax, in any degree, their demands for revenue. 
Therefore wages immediately rose. Labor increased in value, 
while land decreased. Prices, too, rose, and the situation was 
rendered worse by bad crops, murrain among the sheep, and 
more frequent desertion of the villeins. Then king and par- 
liament stepped in and tried to regulate wages by legislation. 
Now, parliament was, in the main, a body of landowners, so 
that what it did was done in its own interest, and not in the 
interest of the peasantry. 

First, in 1349, the king issued a decree addressed to the 
sheriifs, bidding them see that every man and woman, free and 
bond, return to service at the old wages.^ This decree was 



1 Frazer, No. 46; Adams and Stephens, No. 69; Trandations and ReprintSf 
Vol. II, No. 5 (Cheyney, " England in Time of Wycliffe"), pp. 3-6. 



176 EDWARD III. [1350-1375 

embodied by parliament in a statute, in 1351, known as the 
Statute of Laborers, designed to keep wages, by main force, 
where they had been before the Black Death.^ The statute 
forbade laborers in the country and artisans in the cities to 
receive more than they had been customarily paid in 1346, and 
forbade, likewise, lords of towns and manors to pay higher 
wages, on penalty of a fine treble the amount paid. This futile 
ordinance was repeated six times in the ensuing thirty years, 
but the events of 1381 show how useless this attempt at legis- 
lation was. 

131. Last Years of Edward III.— The period from 1360 to 
1377 was one of steady decline in the greatness and brilliancy 
of the king's reign. Notwithstanding the peace of Bretigny, 
the war with France was renewed on one j)retext or another, 
and a number of campaigns were fought. In behalf of Pedro 
of Spain, Edward himself fought in Aquitaine in conjunction 
with the Black Prince, who was governor of that province 
(1367). The Black Prince spent a year and much money put- 
ting down revolts among the Poitevins (1369-1370), and in 
1370^ cruelly massacred many of the citizens of Limoges. 
After 1370, province after province in France withdrew its 
allegiance from the king of England.^ The French king, 
Charles Y, and his able general, Bertrand du Guesclin, re- 
gained the better part of what had been lost at Bretigny ; and 
though John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, ravaged the country 
from Calais to Bordeaux, he did little to restore English pres- 
tige or English control. Gregory XI, at Avignon, made every 
effort to bring about peace between France and England, even 
delaying his return to Rome in order to accomplish his object. 
But his efforts were vain. France was fighting for the old 
purpose of driving the English out of the country, and was 
succeeding. By 1375 the English held little more than the 
cities of Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Calais. 



1 Lee, No. 95 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 70; Frazer, Nos. 48, 49. 

2 Frazer, Part II, No. 8. » Frazer, Part II, No. 9. 



1376] THE GOOD PARLIAMENT. 1T7 

At home administration had become very corrupt. The king 
was mentally broken and under the control of John of Gaunt. 
The Black Prince was suffering from a wasting disease which 
had compelled him to return from Aquitaine in 1370, and which 
wholly unfitted him for taking part in the government. A 
clique of the friends of John of Gaunt controlled affairs. Lord 
Latimer, Lord Neville, and Eichard Lyons, a merchant of 
London, systematically robbed the nation by illegal exactions, 
by receiving privileges and abusing them, and by raising prices 
and appropriating the proceeds. 

132. The Good Parliament.^ — So empty had become the treas- 
ury in 1376, in consequence of the costly wars and the corrup- 
tion at court, that the king's privy council decided to summon 
parliament. This body had grown steadily in power during 
the reign of Edward III, largely through practice and experi- 
ence, and had established effectively its right to control the 
grant of money to the king. The representatives of the towns 
and counties were becoming accustomed to their position, and 
were taking a more active part in parliamentary proceedings, 
ready, should occasion offer, to make an attempt to check the 
abuses of the government, and to assume some of those powers 
that the baronage had hitherto exclusively exercised. 

In 1376 the opportunity came. Summoned for the purpose 
of levying taxes, the seventy-four knights of the shire and 
the two hundred citizens and burgesses, in an angry mood, 
determined, before they granted a penny of supplies,^ to get 
rid of the men who had mismanaged affairs and robbed the 
treasury. Supported by the Black Prince, who, a helpless in- 
valid, resented the tyrannical attitude of his younger brother 
John of Gaunt, they took a new and unexpected stand. They 
declared that the king would have had enough money had the 
realm been wisely governed, and that as long as evil men were 
in office, no grant of theirs could bring prosperity to the king- 
dom. To make their protest more effective, they elected a 

1 Frazer, Part II, No. 11. « Frazer, Part II, No. 10. 



178 EDWARD III. [1377 

head, Peter de la Mare, a knight of the shire of Hereford, to 
act as their speaker, and through hiai they formally impeached 
Lord Latimer and Eichard Lyons, as traitors to the king, and 
demanded that they be deprived of their offices. John of 
Gaunt, anxious to appease the people, whose friend he alwayr 
claimed to be, and fearing the power of the Black Prince, 
yielded to the demand of the Commons. He removed Lord 
Latimer and confiscated his goods, but though the Lords ir 
full parliament decreed the latter's imprisonment, he allowed 
him to find bail among the lords and prelates. Richard Lyons, 
however, was imprisoned, deprived of all his lands, and for- 
bidden ever to hold office again.* 

These were bold acts, and it is hardly surprising that the 
knights and burgesses were unable to maintain their position. 
The death of the Black Prince during the sitting of parlia- 
ment ^ greatly discouraged their leaders and left them more or 
less at the mercy of John of Gaunt. The latter, who had 
yielded to their demands only to strengthen his own position, 
now came out in his true colors, and led a reaction against the 
work of the Good Parliament. He brought back Lord Lat- 
imer j suffered Alice Perrers, the king's mistress, whom the 
Good Parliament had banished, to return; disgraced and drove 
from court Archbishop Wykeham,^ who had led the cause of 
the Commons in the king's council; and threw Peter de la Mare 
into prison. A packed parliament of 1377 confirmed these 
acts. 

The last decade of Edward IIPs reign was a period of na- 
tional disgrace. The naval supremacy won at Sluys was gone; 
the military prestige gained at Crecy and Poitiers had been 
likewise forfeited. The war had increased taxation and inten- 
sified the popular discontent. The trade of the kingdom had 
declined, owing to the loss of power at sea, and French and 
Spanish sea-rovers and pirates preyed on English commerce. 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 82. 3 Frazer, Part II, No. 14. 

2 Frazer, Part II, No. 12. 



1299-1363] STATE AND CHURCH. 179 

At home popular disapproval of conditions in church and state 
was everywhere becoming manifest. 

133. State and Church : Religious Degeneration. — The church 
as well as the state had lost both in importance and influence. 
The lives of the popes at Avignon had gained for them little 
respect in England ; while their continued residence in a French 
city made them appear to the English as allies of England's 
enemy, the king of Erance. 

For three-quarters of a century parliament had been disput- 
ing the right of the pope to interfere in English affairs. In 
1299 it had denied the pope's claim to Scotland as a fief of 
Eome.^ In 1307 it had forbidden the heads of religious houses 
to send any money to Eome,^ and had protested against the 
way higher ecclesiastical officials abroad were forcing money 
from the monasteries and religious houses in England. Toward 
the middle of the century its policy became more definite. 
The popes had been accustomed to fill English church offices, 
that is, to appoint bishops, abbots, and other clergy at pleas- 
ure. This was called the right of provision. In 1351 parlia- 
ment passed the first Statute of Provisors,^ attacking this 
privilege and imposing severe penalties upon all who received 
benefices at the hands of the pope. In like manner, the right 
of appeal to the pope had been forbidden in 1353 by the first 
Statute of Praemunire,'* and both of these decrees had been con- 
firmed in 1363. The king, however, rarely enforced these stat- 
utes, and they had to be repeated again and again. These acts 
were the acts of parliament, and not of the clergy ; that is, they 
were the acts of the state, and not of the church. The clergy 
accepted the decrees of the church councils and the decretals 



1 Gee and Hardy, No. XXXH. 

2GeeandHardy, No. XXXIII; Adams and Stephens, No. 50; Lee, No. 87. 

8 Adams and Stephens, No. 71 ; Translations and Reprints, Vol. II, No. 5 
(Cheyney), p. 6, gives an extract from the statute of 1352; also Lee, No. 90. 

4 Gee and Hardy, No. XXXV ; Adams and Stephens, No. 73. Lee, No. 92, calls 
it a Second Statute of Provisors. This is -wrong ; the statute had nothing to do 
with "provision of benefices." 



180 EDWARD III. [1363 

of the pope as absolutely binding upon their own courts, and 
recognized no special canon law of their own.^ Parliament, in 
passing these laws, was in reality making war not only on the 
pope, but also on the clergy in England, who carried out the 
papal orders. The struggle thus begun was to be continued 
under Richard II. 

At the very time when parliament was limiting the authority 
of the pope in England, the people were becoming thoroughly 
dissatisfied vyith the way in which the English clergy were per- 
forming their religious duties. The higher clergy, bishops and 
abbots, had become worldly and avaricious, shunning their 
spiritual obligations, and engaging in matters of administration, 
finance, and diplomacy. The monasteries and prelates had 
absorbed great wealth, and instead of being centres of life and 
light to the people, had become objects of hatred. The lesser 
clergy, the parish priests, were wretchedly poor, uneducated, 
and inefficient, often unwilling and unable to perform their 
parish duties. Many parishes were vacant because of the Black 
Death. The wealth of the church was badly distributed. For- 
eign churchmen, absentee bishops, and the monasteries received 
the bulk of the revenues, while the parishes received little or 
nothing. 

William Langland, the author of The Vision of Piers Plow- 
man, himself perhaps a villein who had risen to the rank of 
the lesser clergy and had spent his life in the performance of 
his duties, presents a sorrowful picture of the condition of the 
friars and the parochial priests. The latter, he says, neglected 
their charges, quarrelled with the friars, and lived as wolves 
among their own sheep.^ 



1 See the first three essays in Maitland's remarkable work, Roman Canon 
Law in the Church of England, particularly Essay II. 

2 The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, 1886, 
Vol. I, Text C. VII, 119-129, VIII, 1-67, XVII, 241-278. A modern version of 
this poem is soon to be issued in the King's Classics Series. For Langland, 
whose tale was the wretchedness of the people, as Chaucer's was the pleasure 
of the aristocratic class, see Taine, pp. 100 ff. Chaucer and Langland should 



1378] JOHN WICLIF. 181 

134. John Wiclif. — The man who led the attack upon the 
claims of the church and upon the privileges, corruption, and 
wealth of the clergy was John Wiclif. He was born in Yorkshire 
in 1320, and went in early life to Oxford, where he was for a time 
master of Balliol, and also, it is thought, warden of Canterbury 
Hall.^ In 1374 he was made rector of Lutterworth, a village 
in Leicestersliire, which became on this account the centre of a 
new religious agitation. Wiclif was the last of the mediaeval 
schoolmen, men who loved to argue and dispute in a scholas- 
tic sense. But he was no unpractical theorizer; he saw the 
evils of the times and protested against them. He has some- 
times been called the " Morning Star of the Reformation." 

Wiclif's teaching was largely destructive. He denounced the 
claims of the papacy, and as early as 1366, in a pamphlet. The 
Dominion of God, had declared that the state was not subor- 
dinate to the church. He next attacked the clergy for their 
wealth and their interest in worldly affairs, and declared that 
the church should limit itself strictly to its spiritual functions. 
He vigorously opposed the use by the clergy of excommunica- 
tion. In 1377 his views were condemned by Gregory XI,^ but 
the condemnation was without effect in England. In 1378 
Gregory XI died at Rome, and the church divided on the ques- 
tion of his successor. One group of the cardinals elected 
Urban VI, who remained at Rome ; the other chose Clem- 
ent VII, who returned to Avignon.' This great schism weak- 
ened the authority of the papacy, and Wiclif, taking advantage 
of this fact, grew bolder. He attacked the doctrines as well as 
the practices of the church, and went so far as to deny even the 
doctrine of transubstantiation. He asserted the superiority 
of an active over an ascetic life, a claim the more striking in 
that the ascetic had been the ideal of the Middle Ages. He 

be read for difference in the points of view. See the quotations in Frazer, 
Part II, Nos. 2, 13, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26 ("A Pardoner"). 31. 

1 Frazer, Part II, Nos. 18, 19. 

2 Lee, Nos. 96, 97 ; Translations and Reprints^ Vol. II, No. 5 (Cheyney), 
pp. 9-12; Colby, No. 41. 



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[182] 



1377] ACCESSION OF KICHARD II. 183 

inveighed against the friars, whom he charged with hypocrisy 
and worldliness ; ' he inspired a body of " poor priests " to 
preach to the people ; ^ and he gave to these priests an English 
Bible, translated by himself or his followers, probably the most 
complete version issued up to this time.^ 

135. Accession of Richard II. — In 1377 Edward III died, 
and his grandson, Eichard, son of the Black Prince, ascended 
the throne without opposition. The old king had outlived his 
usefulness and had passed away unmourned,^ and the young 
king, a mere lad of ten, began his career in an evil time. The 
French were threatening to invade England and were actually 
landing on the coast of Kent.* Parties at court, in spite of a 
momentary reconciliation, were engaged in factional quarrels 
and were struggling with each other for the control of the gov- 
ernment. The baronage, with John of Gaunt as their leading 
representative, had degenerated into a body of selfish parasites, 
preying on the wealth of the kingdom. 

Richard's reign would be of little interest in English his- 
tory were the wars with France and the bad management of 
those in authority the only matters to be considered. Of infi- 
nitely deeper significance is the unrest among the people of 
which Langland speaks, the discontent of peasants, artisans, 
and lesser clergy with the way taxes were levied, wealth was 
distributed, law administered, and religion taught. The 
troubles at court and the problem of Richard's personal 
character are of but little importance when compared with the 
peasants' revolt, the rise of the Lollards, and the activities of 
parliament. The revolting classes of Richard's reign were 
the ancestors of those who formed the backbone of the English 
nation in the days of the Tudors and the Stuarts ; whereas the 
descendants of the selfish and greedy nobility disappeared 
during the baronial wars of the next century. 

1 Frazer, Part II, No. 23. 

2 Report of Aynerican Hist. Assoc, 1899, pp. 449-483, " The Poor Priests." 
8 The matter is in dispute ; see Gasquet, The Old English Bible, pp. 102-178 ; 

Capes, pp. 124-131. * Frazer, Part II, Nos. 15, 16. 5 Frazer, Part II, No. 17. 



184 RICHARD II. [1380 

136. The Condition and Grievances of the Peasantry. — We 

have seen that during the fourteenth century the condition of 
the villeins had been improving ; that they had been to a small 
degree commuting their labor for money payments ; that many 
of them had fled from the manors and had taken up service or 
artisan work in the towns ; and that the manorial lords had 
been compelled to employ hired laborers, whose wages the Stat- 
ute of Laborers had tried in vain to regulate. We have seen, 
in fact, that the old agricultural system was breaking down ; 
that the growth of towns and of commerce was giving to the 
peasantry new means of livelihood ; and that the old system 
itself was not adapted to meet the competition of trade, or to 
face such grave emergencies as the Black Death. The process 
of transformation was a very slow one, and even in 1380 the 
peasantry were still performing their old services on a great 
many manors. But having once begun to throw off some of 
the old obligations, they were certain to be discon^nted with 
those that remained. Serfdom itself was, therefore, their 
greatest grievance. 

Other grievances, however, were not wanting. The villeins 
were restless under the yoke of their labor services and the 
payments which were written down on the rolls of the manors; 
the hired laborers, in their turn, hated the statutes fixing 
their wages, and more still the lawyers and justices of the 
peace who enforced the law against them. The people in gen- 
eral hated the rich, whether nobles or merchants, for their 
indifference, and the monasteries for their tyranny and selfish- 
ness. They sided with the parish priests in their poverty, 
and viewed with envy the separation of classes and the un- 
equal distribution of wealth. They detested the provisors who 
came among them, and likewise resented the coming of the 
Flemish weavers whom Edward III had encouraged to ply 
their trade in England.^ The laboring classes everywhere felt 
that the government was against them, and was not only 

1 Frazer, Part I, No. 27. 



1381] THE PEASANT REVOLT OF 1381. 185 

heavily taxing them, but was leaving them often unprotected 
against the attacks of French, Welsh, and Scots on the 
borders. 

137. The Peasant Revolt of 1381. — A single act turned the 
irritation of the laboring and artisan classes into a revolt. So 
great had become the deficit of the government that three poll 
taxes were levied in succession, the last of which, authorized 
in November, 1380, was exceedingly heavy.^ The tax amounted 
to three groats, or twelvepence, on every lay person, male or 
female, of the age of fifteen years. Two-thirds of the tax was 
to be collected in January, 1381, and the remainder in the fol- 
lowing June. On the appearance of the tax-collectors, Essex 
and Kent gave the first signal for revolt, followed by Norfolk, 
Suffolk, and other counties ; and before the year was over a 
large portion of southern England, from the Humber to the 
Severn, was to a greater or less extent in insurrection. 

In the three populous counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cam- 
bridge, where the movement was earliest checked, the revolt 
had the appearance of a concerted uprising instigated by revo- 
lutionary agents working secretly among the people.^ The 
mob of Suffolk, consisting of villeins, hired laborers, members 
of the lesser clergy, tradesmen, and artisans, under the leader- 
ship of John Wrawe, a priest, slew John de Cavendish, the 
king's justice, who had been zealous in enforcing the Statute of 
Laborers, sacked manor-houses, and destroyed court rolls and 
manorial documents. Five days later, June 17, Norfolk rose, 
beheaded Sir Robert Salle, sacked houses in Norwich, opened 
jails, plundered and burned at will. They showed their hos- 
tility for the church and the law and their hatred of court 
rolls and kindred documents. The Cambridge mob wrecked 
manor-houses, plundered towns, and destroyed valuable papers. 
But this mob rule was brief. Before the end of June the 

1 The poll taxes of 1377. 1379, and 1380 are given in Adams and Stephens, 
Nos. 83, 87, 88 ; that of 1379, in Frazer, Part II, No. 29. 

2 The account of Walsingham, dealing with the East Anglian uprising, is 
in Frazer, Part II, No. 37. 



186 RICHARD II. [1381 

rioting had been put down by Spencer, the warlike bishop of 
Norwich, and the leaders were hanged and quartered. 

While this revolt was taking place, another uprising occurred 
on the southern side of the Thames.^ Early in June, Dartford 
had become the centre of a revolution in Kent, and a body 
of rioters sacked Canterbury, murdered a number of persons, 
and advanced on London. On June 12, men from Kent, Sur- 
rey, Sussex, and Essex came together at Blackheath. John 
Ball the preacher and Wat Tyler ^ the leader were at their 
head. Convinced that John of Gaunt was responsible for the 
evils that had come upon the country, the insurgents directed 
their wrath against him, and against Sudbury the archbishop. 
Hales the treasurer, and Legge the author of the poll tax. On 
the 13th the rebels entered London, and, joined by the 'pren- 
tices of the city, destroyed the Savoy ,^ John of Gaunt's palace, 
Hales's manor-house, the Temple (the home of the lawyers), 
and the Inns of Court. The king and others sought refuge in 
the Tower.* Finally, Richard agreed to meet the insurgents 
at Mile End, and there on the 14th promised to abolish serf- 
dom and all forms of servile labor, to pardon all the rebels, to 
permit the villeins to trade outside the manors in the towns, 
and to fix rents of lands at fourpence an acre. 

With their demands apparently satisfied, the more moder- 
ate of the insurgents dispersed to their homes. But others, 
more radical, were already enacting a tragedy at the Tower. 
Breaking in, they murdered Sudbury, Hales, and Legge, while 
others slew many Flemings in the city. Again the king faced 
the rioters — those of them that remained — at Smith Field. 
There Wat Tyler was slain by the mayor of London, and the 



1 The account of Froissart, dealing with Kent, is in Frazer, Part 11, No. 30; 
Kendall, No. 84; and Colby, No. 42. See also Frazer, Part II, Nos. 32, 33. 

2 The best and fairest biography of Wat Tyler is by Tait in Dictionary of 
National Biography. 

3 This was one of the few buildings remaining to remind Englishmen of the 
rule of the foreigners (Savoyards, many of them) under Henry III. 

4 Frazer, Part II, No. 34, 



1381] 



THE PEASANT REVOLT OF 1381. 



187 



king, seizing the opportune moment, when confused by the 
loss of their leader they were uncertain what to do, was able to 
induce them to depart. From that moment the cause of the 
rebels was lost.^ On the 17th they were finally dispersed. 

The reprisals were frightful. Kioters were hanged without 
mercy. Chief Justice Tressilian held bloody assizes in Essex, 




LONDON 

IN 

1381. 



and none of the rebels were spared. John Ball was caught and 
hanged. Parliament compelled the king to repeal all the lib- 
erating charters and itself passed an act annulling all the con- 
cessions that had been made.^ 



1 In addition to the valuable account of this phase of the uprising given 
by Trevelyan in his England in the Age of Wydiffe, the critical study of the 
movement by Kriehn {American Historical Review, 1902) should be examined. 
I have embodied some of his conclusions in the above brief statement. His 
criticism of Froissart's narrative as idealizing the part played by king and 
nobles is important; while his attempt to reconstruct the actual scenes at 
Mile End and Smith Field is deserving of careful consideration. He believes 
that the murder of Wat Tyler was a prearranged affair, deliberately planned by 
the king's advisers. The most recent work is by Oman, Uprising of 1381 (1906). 

2 Translations and Reprints, Part II, No. 5 (Cheyney), pp. 1,9, 20. 



188 RICHARD II. [1381 

The results, so far as villeinage was concerned, were prob- 
ably slight. The great value of the revolt lies in the fact that 
it gives us a view of the laboring classes of England at a crit- 
ical time in their history, when they were passing out of vil- 
leinage into freedom, and when payments in kind were being 
replaced by payments in money. The revolt did little to 
hasten this process ; for the landlords, taking advantage of an 
unsuccessful uprising, probably made the lot of the peasant 
for the time being harder than it had been before. Certain it 
is that the releasing of the tenantry from the old bondage was 
not completed for another century. 

138. A Religious Revolt: the Lollards. — Popular discontent, 
thus expressed on the social and economic side in the revolt of 
the peasants, found expression on the religious side in the rise 
of the Lollards. The causes of this religious revolt are not 
difficult to discover. The authority of the mediaeval church was 
declining : abroad, the great schism of 1378, which had brought 
two popes into existence, had destroyed the prestige of the 
church and dimmed men's reverence for it ; at home the attacks 
made by the state since 1350, and by Wiclif during the last 
years of Edward Ill's reign, had weakened its hold upon the 
people. Thus the way was prepared for the spread of Wiclif's 
teachings, and though no sect was organized, yet a large body of 
followers arose, who accepted many of Wiclif's ideas. These 
followers were called Lollards.^ They denounced the sacra- 
ments, believed in preaching as the chief aid in effecting con- 
version, denied transubstantiation, and opposed confession and 
the worship of saints.^ Before the peasants' revolt, little had 
been done to check this heresy ; but after 1381, though no Lol- 

1 "The term 'Lollard,' which was constantly applied at this time to the 
religious malcontents, had been used before in German towns to designate the 
men who chanted or mumbled hymns and sacred music, and so corresponds 
alike in origin and meaning to the epithet of 'canting' in our own tongue." 
Capes, History of the English Church, Vol. Ill, p. 169. For a description of 
the Lollards, see Frazer, Part II, No. 43. 

2 Johnston, English Historical Reprints, Part I, pp. 25-27, " The Twenty-five 
Articles of the Lollards." See also Gee and Hardy, No. XLl. 



1382] THE LOLLARDS. 189 

lard was ever accused of participation in the uprising, a vigorous 
campaign, led by the zealous Courtenay, archbishop of Canter- 
bury, successor of the murdered Sudbury, was begun. On 
May 19, 1382, a council was held at Blackfriars, and Wiclif's 
doctrines were condemned. In the same month parliament 
authorized the royal officers and sheriffs to aid the ecclesiastical 
authorities. During the following year Oxford, where cen- 
tred the intellectual life of England, was compelled to recant 
and to banish Wiclif's followers from its walls. In Leices- 
tershire, in London, and in the west of England, where the 
Lollards were most numerous, every effort was made to crush 
the heresy.^ 

The first generation of Lollards was unable to withstand 
these attacks of the church. As has been well said, "They 
were not ready to be martyrs." All who were brought to 
trial at this time recanted and returned to the fold; but 
thousands, taught by the poor preachers, continued to receive 
the doctrines presented to them and to believe in secret or 
without outward display.^ Wiclif died in 1384 ; but his death 
was only an incident in the movement. The revolt from the 
doctrines of the mediaeval church had begun ; and in the next 
century, men of the second generation were willing to be burned 
at the stake for their faith. Furthermore, Wiclif's teaching 
was carried back to Bohemia by the students and others who 
had come to England in the train of Anne of Bohemia, 
Eichard's first wife (1382), and had studied at Oxford. In 
Bohemia the new ideas bore fruit in the movement under 
John Hus, who was, on the Continent, as was Wiclif in Eng- 
land, the great forerunner of Luther and the Protestant Refor- 
mation. The revolt of the Lollards made easier the religious 
reformation of the sixteenth century in England. 



iGee and Hardy, Nos. XXXVI, XXXVH, XXXVHI; Translations and 
Reprints, Vol. II, No. 5 (Cheyney), pp. 13-14 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 90 ; 
Lee, No. 98; Kendall, No. 35. 

2 Cheyney, "Recantations of the Early Lollards," American Historical 
Review, April, 1899, pp. 423-438. 



190 



RICHARD II. 



[1383 



139. Period I. Richard's Misrule: Resistance of Parliament. 

— Politically Richard's reign was a time of party strug- 
gle for the control of the government. The factions were 
led by the great earls, the possessors of the widest lands 
in England, the majority of whom were of the royal house by 

descent or marriage. 
John of Gaunt, Duke 
of Lancaster, Edmund 
Mortimer, Earl of 
March, Edmund, Duke 
of York, and Thomas, 
Duke of Gloucester, 
were the chief of these 
men. In 1377 parlia- 
ment had appointed a 
regency, from which 
the king's uncles had 
been excluded, but 
which was in the main 
controlled by John of 
Gaunt. The power of 
these nobles began, 
however, to decline 
after the peasants' re- 
volt, and in 1382-1383 
the king, though still 
a minor, disregarded 
the regency, and gath- 
ered about him a 
body of new advisers, among whom were Michael de la Pole, 
Kobert Vere, Earl of Oxford, Chief Justice Tressilian, and 
Nicolas Brembre, chief of the grocers' gild in London. Michael 
de la Pole, who became chancellor in 1383, was the first mer- 
chant to attain high office in England.^ With these men as 




Richard IL 

From Vertue's engraving based on ** an ancient 
original in the Quire,Westminster Abbey," that 
is, on the gilt-lacquer effigy of the king there. 



1 Bourne, English Merchants, 



1388] RESISTANCE OF PARLIAMENT. 191 

councillors, Richard entered upon a career of tyranny and 
extravagance. 

John of Gaunt attempted to check the course of his nephew, 
but his influeuce was fast declining, and in 1385 he withdrew 
to conduct a war in Spain. In parliament alone lay the 
hope of resistance to the king. That body was now meeting 
more or less regularly every year. Though it had usually 
sat but a month or two at a time, it had had ample oppor- 
tunity to protest against the bad government and heavy taxes. 
Its protests had been embodied in the form of petitions, 
which the king was free to consider or not just as he pleased, 
and to which he generally paid little attention. In 1382 
parliament impeached the fighting bishop, Spencer of Norwich, 
who had inaugurated a futile crusade in Flanders. In 1386, 
in an angry mood, it demanded by petition a view of the king's 
accounts, some knowledge of the king's appointments, and the 
dismissal of De la Pole. To this demand Eichard replied in 
anger that he would not remove a scullion from his kitchen. 
But he was forced to yield and to suffer De la Pole to be 
impeached.^ 

Finally, in 1388, guided by Thomas, Earl of Gloucester, 
and the earls of Arundel, Nottingham, Warwick, and Derby 
(Henry Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt), — called the 
Five Lords Appellant, — parliament accused five of the king's 
associates, found them guilty of treason, and put to death 
Tressilian, Brembre, and three others.^ This act of vindictive 
cruelty, for which the parliament has received the name 
" Merciless," was the work, not so much of the knights and 
burgesses, as of the nobles who wished to use parliament as 
an instrument wherewith to rid themselves of their enemies. 
They were able to manage parliament, because the election of 
the members of the House of Commons was controlled largely 
by the great landowners. The frequency of packed parlia- 



1 Frazer, Part II, No. 49; Adams and Stephens, No. 

2 Frazer, Part II, No. 51. 



192 RICHARD II. 

raents and the ready subservience of many knights and 
burgesses will be better understood when it is remembered 
that attendance in parliament was a heavy burden that few 
were able to carry. 

140. Period II. Cooperation of Richard in Good Govern- 
ment. —A period of true parliamentary growth and govern- 
ment began with Richard's personal rule in 1389. The cliques 
of the nobles were broken up. The king, with a moderation 
which has puzzled students of his character, forsook favorites 
and extravagance, and ruled constitutionally through his min- 
isters and with the advice of parliament. It is possible that 
Eichard was playing a shrewd game, intending to lull into a 
feeling of security the leaders of the parliaments of 1386 and 
1387, in order to strike them down later with greater certainty 
of success. However this may be, for eight years he governed 
as a constitutional king. Finances were ably managed, taxa- 
tion was light and fairly proportioned, and important measures 
were passed, touching commerce, the church, and the nobles. 

In developing his commercial policy Richard was at first in- 
clined to encourage aliens to trade in England, as Edward III 
had done. But the towns, particularly London, had protested 
against the privileges granted to aliens, inasmuch as the weav- 
ing industry was making progress in England, and English 
artisans were already working up wool into cloths at home. 
Therefore, in 1392, parliament passed a law, providing that no 
" merchant stranger alien should buy or sell to another alien, 
nor sell to retail" within the kingdom. This reversed the 
policy of Edward III (p. 166), and proved a great discourage- 
ment to the alien trade. On the other hand, it stimulated 
native English industry, and made possible the control of the 
internal and retail trade of England by Englishmen. 

No less important were the statutes dealing with the church. 
Already had parliament declared that the pope should not con- 
trol benefices nor aliens hold benefices in England, and that no 
Englishman should appeal from the king's courts to the pope. 
But so persistent had been the efforts of the clergy to evade 



1393] DEPOSITION OF KICHARD II. 193 

these statutes (of provisors and praemunire) and so willing had 
the king been to neglect them, that up to this time they had 
never been really enforced. In 1390 a second Statute of Pro- 
visors was passed,^ which not only prohibited any one from ac- 
cepting a benefice at the hands of the pope, but also declared 
that the pope could have no control over any appointment to 
benefices whatever. In 1393 a second Statute of Praemunire^ 
declared that the pope could not annul any judgment of the 
king's court, hear any appeals from England, excommunicate 
bishops or " any other of the king's liege people," or send 
"sentences of excommunication, bulls, instruments or any- 
thing else whatsoever which touched the king, against him, his 
crown, and his regality." 

In the third place, parliament sought to abolish a practice 
which had become widespread among the nobility, and was at 
the same time so deep-rooted, that, as events were to show, it 
could not be eradicated by legislation. This practice was the 
maintenance, by the great lords, of bodies of retainers, often 
sufficient in number to form almost a petty army. The prac- 
tice had become common after 1290, when the statute Quia 
Emptores forbade subinfeudation. To supply the place of the 
sub-tenants, who by their tenure had been obliged to do military 
services for their lords, the dukes and earls had gathered about 
them men whom they hired to fight their battles. These men 
wore the lord's livery, and were fed at his expense; at this 
time and in the next century their brawls were frequent sources 
of trouble. Attempts had been made to prevent this practice, 
by Edward III, by the Good Parliament, and now by the 
parliament of Richard II in 1390,^ but ineffectively, and the 
evil was to be swept away only during the wars of the next 
century. 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. XXXIX. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 98; Gee and Hardy, No. XL ; Translations and 
Reprints, Vol. II, No. 5 (Cheyney), pp. 6-9. 

8 Adams and Stephens, No. 96. Another attempt was made by Henry IV, 
in 1399. 



194 KICHARD II. [1397 

141. Period III. Deposition of Richard II.— From 1389 to 
1397 Richard ruled with moderation and prudence, avoiding 
extravagance and war, and aiding in the passage of laws useful 
to the nation at large. In 1394 Anne of Bohemia died. Two 
years afterward Richard, having entered into a truce with 
France, solemnized the occasion by marrying a mere child, 
the daughter of the French king. From that time his char- 
acter changed. Believing in the existence of a plot of the 
nobility and remembering the indignities heaped upon him 
in 1386 and 1387, he began to take vengeance on his enemies. 
The parliament of 1397 was elected under the direct influence 
of the king and cannot be deemed an independent body. 
Through its aid the earl of Arundel was impeached and 
executed; the duke of Gloucester, exiled to Calais, died 
there, murdered, as has been proved without question,^ by 
command of Richard ; Warwick was exiled to the Isle of Man ; 
and others were accused and outlawed.^ The parliament of 
the next year (1398)^ was equally a packed body, and its chief 
act was to grant the king a duty on wool and hides for life. 
When this had been done, the king became independent of 
parliament and practically absolute.'* 

This policy aroused the opposition of a party that found a 
leader in Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, one of the late 
Lords Appellant. At first Bolingbroke had found favor with 
Richard, his cousin, who had made him duke of Hereford. 
But in 1398 he had been banished by the king without appar- 
ent cause.^ This act, coupled with Richard's seizure of the 
lands of John of Gaunt, after the latter's death in 1399, turned 
Bolingbroke, now duke of Lancaster, against the king. When, 
therefore, in 1399, Richard unwisely left England to drive 
back the Celts, who were encroaching on the English settle- 



1 By Tait, in The Owens College Historical Essays, pp. 139-216. 

2 Frazer, Part II, No. 57. 

3 Parliament of Shrewsbury, Frazer, Part II, No. 58 ; Adams and Stephens, 
Nos. 100, 101. 

4 Frazer, Part II, No. 62. « Frazer, Part II, Nos. 60, 61, 63. 



1399] CHARACTER OF RICHARD'S REIGN. 195 

ments in Ireland, Henry landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire 
and quickly gathered the malcontents about him.^ Eichard, 
returning from Ireland, was captured at Conway Castle, in 
Wales, and realizing that the lords and the nation were 
against him, abdicated his throne. In his act of resignation 
Richard gave up all his prerogatives. In the presence of 
parliament the act of deposition was read, and twenty-three 
reasons were given why the throne should be declared vacant.^ 
This done, Henry of Lancaster claimed the crown in a speech 
delivered in English, and parliament recognized the claim. ^ 
In so doing it passed by the earl of March, the man with 
the better hereditary right, and gave the title to the stronger 
claimant. Henry of Lancaster became Henry IV. This vic- 
tory of parliament was really a victory for the nobility. The 
nation had little to say in the matter. 

142. Character of Richard's Reign. — The end of the century 
brings us to a significant turning-point in the development of 
England. The most powerful men in the country were the 
great lords possessing retinues, fortified castles, family tradi- 
tions and names, controlling government and warring with 
each other, a reconstructed and artificial feudal class. But 
more important for the future of England were the towns, 
already entering upon a new commercial and artisan life, 
the freeholders, already the yeomanry of England, and the 
villeins, well advanced in their progress toward freedom. 
Of all these classes the reign of Richard gives us a glimpse, 
showing them in a state of transformation. The factional 
quarrels of the nobility foreshadowed the death grapple of 
the Wars of the Roses ; the growth of the towns made possi- 
ble a native English commerce in the hands of the Merchant 
Adventurers ; the rise of the yeomanry and the release of the 
villeins from bondage looked forward to a new agriculture 
and a new system of labor, and gave to the nation a new social 

1 Frazer, Part II, No. 64. 

2 Frazer, Part II, No. 65, 66; Adams and Stephen, No. 102. 

3 Durham, No. 2; Frazer, II, No. 67; Adams and Stephens, No. 103. 



196 RICHARD II. 

class, no longer bound to the soil and unprotected by the courts. 
The reign of Richard shows that England was in the midst of 
a silent revolution. 



References for Chapter VIII. The period of English history treated 
in this chapter differs from the periods that have preceded in that it has 
less to do with constitutional questions than with social crises and changes. 

The serial histories of the period are Tout's volume in the Political 
History and Ramsay's Genesis of Lancaster, 1307-1399, 2 vols. (1913). 
Warburton's brief outline, Edward the Third (1887), is good ; Mackin- 
non's Edward III (1900) is more recent and in many particulars more 
accurate. Supplementing these histories, which are largely political, dip- 
lomatic, and military, are Social England, Vol. II, Chap. VI, Cheyney's 
Industrial and Social History of England (2d ed. 1920), and Warner's 
Landmarks in English Industrial History (11th ed. 1910, 4th reprint 
1912). Fuller accounts are in Gross's Gild Merchant, Vol. I (1890), 
Ashley's English Economic History, Part II, Vol. I (1893), and Cunning- 
ham's Origin and Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. I. 
A learned description of manorial life is Vinogradoff's Villainage in 
England (1892), Essay II. The best general account of the manors, 
open fields, fairs, markets, and gilds of the Middle Ages is in Lipson's 
Economic History of England (1915), Vol. I, Chaps. II-VIII, and a 
satisfactory account somewhat less technical is that of Tickner, A Social 
and Industrial History of England (1910). Salzmann's English Indus- 
tries in the Middle Ages (1913) is a popular but scholarly work. On a 
phase of history that is receiving increased attention — finance and trade 
— see Finance and Trade under Edward III (ed. Unwin, 1918), and 
Terry's The Financing of the Hundred Years^ War (1914). 

For vivid pictures of the life of the common people, the writings of 
Jessopp, Coming of the Friars (1890), Essays I, IV, V, and Studies of a 
Recluse (1893), Essay V, and of Jusserand, Piers Ploughman, a Contri- 
bution to the History of English Mysticism (1893), and English Wayfar- 
ing Life in the Middle Ages (1892) are indispensable. On a subject of 
increasing importance during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see 
Ribton-Turner's Vagrants and Vagrancy (1887). The best accounts of 
the Black Death are those of Gasquet, TJie Black Death in 1348 and 1349 
(new and revised ed. 1908), and Creighton, History of Epidemics in 
Britain (1891), and for some of the results on the administrative side we 
have Putnam's Enforcement of the Statutes of Labourers of 1349 and 
1351 (1908), which covers the decade from 1349 to 1359. An admirable 
book on mediaival customs is Bateson's Mediceval England (1903) . Dunn- 



REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER VIII. 197 

Pattison has wi-itten a life of the Black Prince (1913) and Armytage-Smith 
one of John of Gaunt (1904). 

For the years after 1368, the work of Trevelyan, England in the Aye 
of Wycliffe (new eel. 1909), is scholarly and very well written ; it deals 
chiefly with the political intrigues, the church, and the peasants' revolt. 
PowelFs The Peasant Rising in East Anglia (1899), Oman's Uprising of 
13S1 (1906), and Kriehn's "Studies in the Sources of the Social Revolt 
in 1381" {A. H. i?.. Vol. VII) supplement and correct Trevelyan's 
account. For Wiclif we have lives by Lechler (translated from the 
(jerman, 1878, 1881, 1884), and Sargent (Heroes of the Nations Series), 
and discussions of his thought and influence by Poole in Illustrations of 
the History of MedicBval Thought (1884) and Wycliffe and the Movements 
for Reform. An essay on Wiclif may be found in Creighton's Historical 
Essays and Reviews (1902). For all that relates to the plague, Wiclif, 
and the Lollards the third volume by Capes of A History of the English 
Church (1900) is admirable. The standard work on Lollardy, Gairdner's 
Lollardy and the Reformation, 3 vols. (1911), the first of which concerns 
this period, is really a history of religious discontent from the time of 
Wiclif until after the Reformation in England. 

For the constitutional history of the reigns of Edward III and Richard 
II, Stubbs's Constitutional History, Vol. Ill, Chaps. XVI, XVII, will long 
remain unsurpassed. Pike's Constitutional History of the House of 
Lords (1894) is an important and valuable work. A contribution of ex- 
ceptional interest to the administrative history of the government during 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is Tout's Chapters in the Adminis- 
trative History of Medioival England : The Wardrobe, the Chamber, and 
the Small Seals, 4 vols., of which two have appeared. On the private 
courts — commonly known as court baron, court leet, and customary 
court — see Adams, "Private Jurisdiction in England" in A. H. R., 
April, 1918, pp. 596-602. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE LANCASTRIAN KINGS AND THE WARS OP THE 

ROSES. 

143. The Position and Character of Henry IV. — Henry of 
Lancaster claimed the throne by virtue of his descent from 
Henry III, and because, as he said, " the realm was in point 
to be undone for default of governance and undoing of good 
laws." Parliament, in accepting him as king, was undoubtedly 
influenced by this hereditary claim, though in reality there 
was little in it, but it was moved much more by the desire to 
have a king dependent on itself for his authority. Henry was 
the first parliamentary king in English history; but he repre- 
sented rather the conservative. and aristocratic portion of par- 
liament, the lords, lay and spiritual, than the knights and 
burgesses, the party of the future. It is not strange, therefore, 
that he should have been himself conservative, even reaction- 
ary. He was, in fact, mediaeval in policy, an upholder of the 
temporal power of the church, hostile to the Lollards, and 
opposed to those movements that during Kichard's reign had 
striven to free the people from the authority of the church on 
one side, and of the manorial lords on the other. Though his 
election gave a great opportunity to parliament to extend its 
authority and influence, yet it was not destined to aid even in 
the least degree the emancipation of the peasant or the Lollard. 
Progress in this particular was almost imperceptible; neither 
king nor parliament did anything to hasten it. 

144. Attempts to dethrone Henry IV. — The choice of parlia- 
ment did not by any means find unanimous support in Eng- 
land, and during Henry's early years as king, attempts were 

198 



1403] 



ATTEMPTS TO DETHRONE HENRY IV. 



199 



made to unseat him. At the beginning of his reign a con- 
spiracy was formed by Richard's half-brothers, the earls of 
Kent and Huntingdon, but the plot was discovered and the 
earls were executed.^ After Richard's death, at Pontefract, 
in January, 1400, his 
adherents turned to 
the earl of March, 
whom Richard had 
designated as his suc- 
cessor, and a revolt 
began in the north, 
where the Percys, of 
whom the earl of 
Northumberland was 
the head, ruled as prac- 
tically independent 
feudal lords. Though 
they had aided Henry 
in his struggle for the 
throne, they now turned 
against him, on the 
pretext of an insult 
to Edmund Mortimer, 
their kinsman ; and 
while Henry was in 
Wales, fighting Owen 
Glendower,^ whose 




Henrt IV. 

From Vertue's engraving, based 
on a picture at Hampton Court. 



people, the Welsh, had always been devoted to Richard, 
they plotted against him. Acting in conjunction with the 
Welsh, the Percys advanced southward, but were defeated 
at Shrewsbury on the Welsh border (1403). There Henry 



1 Durham, Nos. 4, 5. 

2 On the Welsh peasant revolt under Glendower, see Edwards, Wales, 
Chap. XVI ; Bradley, Owen Ghjndwr and the Last Struggle for Welsh Inde- 
pendence (1902) ; Durham, No. 8. 



200 THE LANCASTRIAN KINGS. [1409 

Percy (Hotspur) was killed.* Glendower warred on, fight- 
ing in a hopeless cause, till his death in 1415; while the 
father of Hotspur, who had submitted in 1403, again conspired, 
with Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, and Scrope, Archbishop 
of York.^ The conspiracy was betrayed, and Mowbray and 
Scrope were beheaded. Northumberland was slain at Bram- 
ham Moor in 1407. 

Toward the end of his reign the position of Henry became 
more secure. He was fortunate in capturing Prince James, 
son of Eobert III of Scotland, when the prince was on his way 
to France to be educated. By retaining his captive in England 
for eighteen years as a hostage (1406-1424), he was able to 
ward off all trouble from Scotland during that time. Danger 
from France was removed by the civil war in that country 
between the Orleanists and the Burgundians,^ a war similar 
in character to that which soon broke out between the Houses 
of Lancaster and York in England. 

145. The Church under Henry IV : The Lollards. — Henry was 
supported in the main by the higher clergy, whose interests he 
had promised to respect; though some of them, like Archbishop 
Scrope of York, were bitterly opposed to him. The lower 
clergy were generally hostile; the friars hated the "usurper" 
and preached disloyalty to the masses ; the monks, widely dis- 
affected, aided in hatching plots and creating turbulence among 
the peasantry. The age was one of great doubt and uncer- 
tainty as to what to do and think. Men did not know where 
to look for authority, either in church or state. The Council 
of Pisa, called in 1409 to bring to an end the Great Schism, 
made the situation worse by choosing a third pope, so that 
from the Council of Pisa to that of Constance there were three 
popes, each claiming to be the head of the church."* This 



1 Durham, Nos. 9-11. 2 Durham, No. 13. 

3 For a brief account of the situation in France, see Adams's Growth of the 
French Monarchy, pp. 125-127. 

4 The best accounts of the great councils of Pisa and Constance may be 
found in Pastor, History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, Vol. 1, 



I 



1410] THE CHURCH UNDER HENRY IV. 201 

grievous division of Christendom into three parts created 
great confusion in men's minds, and increased the numbers 
of those who were following the heretical teachings of 
Wiclif. 

King and archbishop were at oue in their opinion of the 
heretics. Henry upheld the church in its persecution of the 
Lollards, and aided the bishops to suppress them by force. 
The Parliament of 1401, at the special request of Arundel, the 
persecuting archbishop of Canterbury, passed a statute au- 
thorizing the burning of heretics, the Statute De Hoeretico 
Comhurendo, which was the first law passed in England for the 
suppression of religious opinions.^ According to this statute, 
the sheriffs, mayors, and bailiffs were to carry out the sentence 
of the ecclesiastical court in the case of a person refusing to 
abjure, or who, having once abjured, had relapsed. They were 
to cause such persons to be burnt " in a high place that such 
punishment might strike fear into the minds of others." Even 
while this bill was before parliament, William Sawtre, vicar at 
Lynn, was burnt alive by command of the king.^ An Evesham 
tailor, Badby, was burnt in 1410, after a formidable trial be- 
fore a convocation at London, where he had been condemned 
for asserting that " Christ sitting at supper could not give his 
disciples his living body to eat." Prince Henry (afterward 
Henry V) personally sought to persuade Badby to recant, but 
without success. Others, like William Thorpe, were impris- 
oned, though not burnt. During the reign of Henry IV there 
is nothing to show that the Lollards ever engaged in any con- 
spiracy or plot. Doubtless many of them desired not only to 
reform the doctrines of the church, but also to deprive the 



and Creighton, History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of 
Rome (1882-1894), Vol. I. Wylie, The Reign of Henry IV (1884-1898), is full of 
useful matter relating to the Great Schism. The same author's lectures on 
the Council of Constance (1900) are models of their kind. 

iLee, No. 99; Gee and Hardy, No. XLII; Adams and Stephens, No. 106; 
Translations and Reprints, Vol. II, No. 5 (Cheyney), p. 14; Durham, No. 6. 

2 Gee and Hardy, No. XLIII; Durham, No. 7, 



202 THE LANCASTRIAN KINGS. [1413 

clergy of their great endowments/ and so to reorganize the 
church along purely spiritual lines, free from the sordid mo- 
tives of honor and wealth that had influenced it hitherto. In 
the next reign, the Lollards became offenders not only against 
the church, but against the state also. 

146. Henry V. — Henry IV died in 1413, leaving the crown, 
without opposition, to the Prince of Wales, who ascended the 
throne on May 20 as Henry V. The traditions that Prince Hal's 
early years were a time of rioting and dissipation are mainly 
the exaggerations of later writers, for the prince as king showed 
a sobriety and dignity of demeanor wholly at variance with the 
account that Shakespeare has given of him and Falstaff. He 
had already directed affairs during the illness of his father, 
and had shown his military ability in the many battles that 
his father had been called upon to light. He was possessed of 
nobility of character, considerable learning, and gracious man- 
ners. His life was a brilliant one, but his aims were injurious 
to England, and his statesmanship was of a distinctly inferior 
type. He was a warrior, but he was also a mystic, and his 
eyes were turned to the past rather than to the future ; he was 
a believer in religious persecution, and deemed the continu- 
ance of the war with France an obligation as holy as was the 
maintenance of the faith of the church. 

147. Further Persecution of the Lollards : Oldcastle. — Under 
Eichard II the Lollards had generally recanted; under Henry IV 
they had become martyrs for their faith ; under Henry V they 
were not only heretics, but revolutionists also. The chief Lol- 
lard of the time was a knight of yerefordshire, Sir John Old- 
castle, a soldier and a scholar, "who had openly encouraged 
the sectarian preachers on his estate and in his castle." ^ Sum- 
moned to appear and answer for his heresy before the bishops, 



1 See Oldcastle's bill of 1410, showing what could be done with the posses- 
sions of the church if they should be distributed for the good of the king- 
dom. Johnston's English Historical Reprints, Part I, p. 29. 

2 Capes, pp. 185-188 ; Durham, No. 39. 



i 



1418] THE INCREASING POWER OF PARLIAMENT. 203 

he at first refused to obey. But at the king's command he 
came, and was condemned as a heretic and handed over to the 
secular power "to do him thereupon to death" (1413). Old- 
castle escaped, and for four years became the supposed leader 
of a Lollard conspiracy against the king. He was charged 
with aiding the Welsh and negotiating with the Scots. His 
followers were accused of sedition and conspiracy. A new 
statute was passed against them; sheriffs and justices were 
ordered to arrest them and bring them to justice.^ Finally, in 
1418, Oldcastle was faptured, hanged as a traitor, and after- 
ward his body was burned because he had been a heretic. From 
this time forward Lollardry became a faith for the poorer 
classes. Those who were burnt were generally parish priests 
or lowly persons.^ Men like Bishop Pecock, of higher rank, 
recanted. During the Wars of the Koses there is little evi- 
dence of activity among the Lollards. 

148. The Increasing Power of Parliament. — Although the 
Lancastrian kings, with the cooperation of the church, were 
able to persecute the heretics, they could not prevent parlia- 
ment from steadily increasing its claims and functions. The 
conspiracies at home, the national movement in Wales, the 
revolt of the Percys, and the trouble with England and Scot- 
land made Henry IV's reign a burdensome and expensive one. 
Dependent, as he was, upon parliament for his title, he became 
increasingly dependent on it because of his constant need of 
money. Parliament named the king's council, audited the 
king's accounts, and not only controlled taxation as they had 
done for a century, but made good their demand that redress 
of grievances should precede a grant of supplies.-^ They asked 
that their parliamentary privileges be fully recognized by the 
king ; ^ that they should not be held responsible for what they 
said in parliament ; ^ that they and their servants be free from 

1 Lee, Nos. 100-102. 2 Lee, No. 103. 

3 Compare the subsidy grants, given in Adams and Stephens, Nos. 114, 118. 

* Adams and Stephens, No. 107. 

5 Adams and Stephens, Nos. 105, 108. 



204 THE LANCASTRIAN KINGS. [1429 

arrest during the session of the court ; ^ and that their petitions 
be speedily answered by the king.^ A great constitutional 
advantage was obtained in 1407, when Henry IV agreed that 
money bills should originate in the House of Commons ; ^ and 
another, in 1414, when Henry V promised not to alter a petition 
or bill without referring the alteration back to the peti- 
tioners.^ During this period the first attempts were made 
to define the voting privilege. Complaints had been made 
as early as 1406 of abuses by the sheriff in the matter of 
electing knights of the shire, and attempts had been made 
at that time to regulate the method of election.^ In 1413 
knights were required to be " resident within the shire where 
they shall be chosen," ^ and in 1429 the right to vote was limited 
to those freeholders who possessed a "free tenement of the 
value of forty shillings a year at least." ^ All sorts of people 
seem to have got into the habit of attending the court and 
taking part in the election. To prevent this the law of 1429 
was passed. It is not likely that this law altered seriously 
the character of parliament, though it must have reduced the 
number of freeholders voting in the shire court. The agri- 
cultural population — making up about nine-tenths of the 
people of the kingdom — never had had a share in the 
election of the knights of the shire. 

149. Continuation of the Hundred Years' War : Henry's Vic- 
tories.^ — England and France had been at war almost inces- 
santly since 1337. The treaty of Bretigny, and the truces 
agreed to after 1360, had not brought about a permanent 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 122, "Except for Treason, Felony, and Surety 
of the Peace " ; cf. No. 127. 2 Adams and Stephens, No. 109. 

3 Adams and Stephens, No. 112 ; Durham, No. 20. 
* Adams and Stephens, No. 117; Durham, No. 40. 
6 Adams and Stephens, Nos. Ill, 113. 

6 Adams and Stephens, No. 115 ; cf . 125. 

7 Adams and Stephens, No. 121 ; 40 sh. = ahout $150 to $200 of present 
money, a very considerable sum. This act, therefore, restricted the voting 
privilege to the " most worthy knights and esquires " of the county. Durham, 
No. 68. 8 Durham, Nos. 22-38. 



1421] VICTORIES O^ HENRY V. ^05 

peace. That which Edward III, the Black Prince, and John 
of Gaunt had done, Henry V was to continue, and his mili- 
tary deeds were to rival Crecy and Poitiers. In 1414 he 
revived the English claims to the lost provinces in the south 
of France, and in 1415 demanded the crown of France itself. 
Both demands were, of course, rejected, and in 1415, Henry, 
with six thousand archers and two thousand men-at-arms, landed 
on the coast of Normandy. He .captured Harfleur, and then, 
though his force was depleted by pestilence, resolved to march 
to Calais, through the enemy's country. At Agincourt he was 
confronted by the French army, four times as large as his own, 
led by the constable of France, John d'Albret. Through incred- 
ible blunders on the part of the French, Henry was able to win 
a famous victory, which increased immeasurably the prestige 
of the English archer and decreased the value of the heavily 
armed feudal knight. Henry returned to England in triumph, 
and was received by the people with demonstrations of joy. 
The battle of Agincourt (October 25, 1415) ^ repaid England 
for the losses she had suffered since Bretigny, and increased 
the war fever at home. 

In August, 1417, Henry invaded France for the second time, 
and during the year and a half that followed became the 
master of all Normandy. Such unprecedented victory was 
possible only because of the suicidal wars between the parties 
in France, with the duke of Burgundy on one side, and on 
the other the Dauphin (later, Charles VII), the head of the 
Armagnac faction. After long negotiation, a treaty was con- 
cluded at Troyes, May 14, 1420, between Philip the Good, 
Duke of Burgundy, and the English king, according to which 
Henry was recognized as the heir of France, and the daughter 
of the king of France was given to him in marriage. 

But the Dauphin, refusing thus to be deprived of his inher- 
itance, defeated the English, under the duke of Clarence, the 
king's brother, in the battle of Bauge, March 22, 1421. For a 

1 Durham, No. 27. 



206 THE LANCASTRIAN KINGS. , [1428 

third time Henry returned to France, where he succumbed to 
a greater conqueror than the Dauphin. On August 31, 1422, 
Henry died at Vincennes. Parliament appointed Bedford, his 
brother, protector of the realm during the minority of Henry 
VI, with Gloucester, another brother, regent in England dur- 
ing Bedford's absence in France.^ 

150. Close of the Hundred Years' War : Loss of France. — Henry 
had had a definite purpose in his war with France. He had 
not only proposed to continue the policy of his predecessors, 
and to strengthen his throne by winning military glory, but he 
wished also to make Normandy a second England; to purify 
the government there, to improve the condition of the people, 
and to encourage manufactures. In so doing he had a double 
object: to control the English Channel, and to obtain a voice 
in European affairs. 

But this plan entirely failed. The immediate effect of 
Henry's successes was to arouse a spirit of patriotism in France 
that was to end in the complete defeat of the English. France, 
since the days of the great kings, Philip II and Philip IV, 
had passed through a long period of feudal reaction, when the 
monarchy was in a life and death grapple with the great terri- 
torial lords. But now, at the end of the struggle, she was ready 
to enter upon a new period of her career. From the Hundred 
Years' War she was to emerge a powerful kingdom, destined 
in half a century to win for herself lasting victory and a lead- 
ing position among European states. 

When, by a curious coincidence, Charles of France died in 
the same year with Henry of England, the young Henry VI, 
according to the terms of the treaty of Troyes, became king 
of France, with the duke of Bedford acting as regent. His 
title was acknowledged in northern France, and for the first six 
years Bedford succeeded in maintaining and continuing the 
conquests.^ Maine was reduced and the Loire region occupied. 
In 1428 the English laid siege to Orleans. The fortunes of 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 119. 2 Durham, Nos. 41-44. 



1429] CLOSE OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 207 

the Dauphin, Charles VII, who had refused to acknowledge 
Henry's claim, never seemed at a lower ebb than in 1428, when 
there took place one of the most extraordinary occurrences in 
history. Joan of Arc, a village maid of Domremy, in Cham- 
pagne, presented herself before Charles at Chinon, and declared 
that she had been divinely sent to rescue France. Accepted 
by the king as a last hope, she succeeded in raising the siege 
of Orleans and in turning the tide of English success. At 
Jargeau, the earl of Suffolk was captured, and Lord Talbot was 
defeated at Patty. On July 17, 1429, Charles VII was crowned 
at Kheims.^ 

The appearance of the Maid of Orleans roused in an extraor- 
dinary way the patriotism of the French. Little by little the 
English were driven back, until scarcely more than Normandy, 
Picardy, and Maine were left in their hands. Before Com- 
piegne, the Maid, unhorsed in a sudden onset, was captured by 
Philip of Burgundy, who, as the signer of the treaty of Troyes, 
supported the cause of Henry VI. Philip sold her for ten 
thousand crowns to the English. After imprisonment and 
an unworthy trial, she was burned as a witch at liouen (1431). 
The shame of this deed belongs to the duke of Bedford and to 
the heartless Charles VII, who raised not a finger to save the 
heroine who had made him king of France.^ 

For twenty years the English king struggled to retain his 
hold upon his remaining French possessions. The death of 
Bedford in 1435, and the defection of Philip of Burgundy the 
same year, rendered his cause hopeless. In 1436 Paris fell into 
the hands of the French; in 1449, at the battle of Formigny, 
the English forces suffered a crushing defeat; Normandy was 
lost forever, and by 1450 all that Henry V had gained by his 
brilliant career of conquest was gone without hope of recovery. 
In 1451 Guienne surrendered, and in 1453 Bordeaux, the last 



1 Durham, Nos. 45-47. 

2 Colby, No. 45; Durham, No. 48; T. D. Murray, Jea7me d' Arc (1902), an 
excellent and interesting work containing many original documents. 



208 THE LANCASTRIAN KINGS. [1463 

stronghold in the south, was starved out.^ Calais and the Chan- 
nel Islands alone remained to remind England of the former 
greatness of her kings as feudal lords in France. But the 
losses of England meant the independence of France. With 
the close of the Hundred Years' War begins the national unity 
and European importance of that kingdom. 

151. Factional Struggles in England.— Just as France had 
been afilicted for half a century by the selfish ambitions of the 
Burgundians and Armagnacs during the insanity of Charles VI, 
so England was to pass through a similar experience during 
the minority and weak rule of Henry VI. 

In the years after the death of Henry V the political his- 
tory of England is barren of significance. All eyes were 
directed toward the war in France. At home a struggle to 
control the king was taking jjlace between Henry V's brother, 
the duke of Gloucester, whom parliament had made protec- 
tor,2 g^jj(j ]^[g uncle, Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, 
and afterward cardinal. The former fell into disgrace, owing 
to the charges of witchcraft brought against his second wife, 
Eleanor Cobham; and in 1442 Henry VI took the reins of 
government into his own hands. He had his favorite, William 
de la Pole, Earl of kSuffolk, who negotiated his marriage with 
Margaret of Anjou in 1445.^ After the death of Gloucester in 
1447, and of Beaufort in the same year, Suffolk became master 
of the situation. His chief rival was Richard, Duke of York, 
nephew of that earl of March whom Henry IV had kept from 
the throne in 1399, and grandson of Edmund, fourth son of 
Edward III. Suffolk was charged with the failure of the war 
in France, and was impeached for treason by the House of 
Commons.'* Pardoned by the king, he attempted to escape 
from England. But he was intercepted and beheaded off 
Dover by the sailors of William Canynges of Bristol, one of 
the Merchant Adventurers, who, as a class, resented the escape 

1 Durham, Nos. 56-58. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 120; see Durham, Nos. 60, 61. 

» Durham, No. 54. * Durham, No. 72. 



1450] 



CADE'S REBELLION. 



209 



of a man who had done much to injure their trade and com- 
merce. His place in the king's favor was taken by the Lan- 
castrian Edmund, Duke of Somerset, nephew of Cardinal 
Beaufort and grandson of John of Gaunt. 

152. Protest against Misrule and Extravagance : Cade's Rebel- 
lion. — Events of the year 1450 give us an insight into the 
popular discontent aroused by this selfish strife for power and 
booty, and the powerlessness of the king and parliament. That 
the classes below the nobles looked with increasing ill-will 
upon these feuds, with their resulting extravagance, misgovern- 
ment, extortion, and moral degeneration among all the officials 
of the realm, is evident from what is known as Cade's rebel- 
lion. This movement was participated in by men of gentle 
rank as well as yeomen, by merchants, craftsmen, boatmen, and 
laborers, a few of the clergy, and local officials. Though find- 
ing its chief centre in Kent, Sussex, and Essex, it spread into 
Hants, Dorset, and Wilts, where local grievances were at 
the bottom of the movement. In general, the uprising was 
purely political in character, and was in the interest of those 



THE LANCASTRIANS AND FRENCH CONNECTIONS. 



Henry IV=Mary Bohun 



Charles VI 
I 13S0-1422 



Henry V = Catherine 



Louis of Anjou 

I 



Eene of Anjou Mary of= Charles VII Isabella= Eichard II 
^1 Anjou 1422-1461 of England 



Henry VI= Margaret 
of Anjou 



Edward, 

put to death 

1471 



Louis XI=® Margaret of 
Scotland 
*■ (D Charlotte of 
Savoy 



Catherine — Charles the 
Bold of 
Burgundy 
who married 

as his 

third wife, 

Margaret, 

sister of 

Edward IV 



210 THE WARS OF THE ROSES. [1450 

who were opposed to the existing government, notably in the 
interest of the duke of York, who from selfish or other mo- 
tives had at this time come forward as the representative of 
the popular cause. More particularly it was a protest against 
the squandering of the king's revenues, and the heavy taxes, 
due to the wars, against the oppression by the sheriffs, the cor- 
ruption of officials, the appointment of debased judges, the 
interference of the nobility in the elections,^ and the loss of 
France, which ruined the maritime trade and diminished the 
export of wool and cloths into Flanders. Kent protested most 
strongly, because there industry and trade had made excep- 
tional progress. 

Under a captain of Kent, who called himself Mortimer, 
cousin of the duke of York, but who is better known as Jack 
Cade, the men of Kent rose in military fashion, as if duly 
summoned by the constables. They advanced to Blackheath 
and presented their grievances to the king. On June 18 a 
battle was fought at Sevenoaks, where the king's troops were 
defeated. Henry yielded to the rebels and dismissed certain ob- 
noxious officials. Say, the chief treasurer, and Crowmer, sheriff 
of Kent. During the first week of July the rebels occupied 
London, and unwilling to await the course of royal justice, 
beheaded both Say and Crowmer. Eventually, however, they 
were got out of the city, and receiving letters of pardon from 
the king dispersed to their homes. Cade was afterward cap- 
tured in Sussex and executed.^ 

153. The Wars of the Roses : ^ I (to 1460). Struggle of Parties 
to control the King. — The uprising of Cade was clearly a pro- 
test against the Lancastrian government, and in the interest of 
that party which was opposed to the ministers about Henry 
VI. Of this party the head was Richard, Duke of York, who 
in 1424, after the death of his uncle, the earl of March, be- 

1 Kendall, No. 38; Durham, No. 59; also Nos. 74-76, Part II, No. 3. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 126. 

8 The badge of the House of Lancaster was the red rose, that of the House 
of York the white rose: hence the name, " Wars of the Roses." 



1456] STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE KING. 211 

came the heir to the throne. It has been sometimes thought 
that he was directly or indirectly influential in Jack Cade's 
rebellion. However this may be, he returned in 1450 from 
Ireland, where he had been sent as the king's lieutenant, and 
marched on to London, where he offered himself as the adviser 
of the king, presenting a petition for the better organization of 
the government.* For the moment Henry accepted his support 
and advice ; but on the return of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of 
Somerset, whom Henry had made regent of Normandy, and 
who was cordially hated by the people, the king turned to the 
older favorite, and restored him to power in the council. From 
1450 to 1453 the rivalry between York and Somerset con- 
tinued,^ until a series of events occurred which turned the bal- 
ance in favor of York. On July 3, 1453, Guienne, the last 
territory in France, was lost, and in consequence Somerset was 
disgraced and imprisoned. Henry VI became insane, and a 
regency was necessary. And lastly. Queen Margaret gave 
birth to a son, • an event which destroyed York's claim to 
the throne, but made it easier for the advisers of the king to 
accept York's leadership. In 1454 the duke was proclaimed 
by parliament the Protector of the Kingdom.^ 

Unfortunately the king recovered,'* and Margaret of Anjou, 
self-willed and headstrong, determined to drive out the man 
who was threatening to dominate at court where she had 
ruled for years. York was dismissed, Somerset was released, 
and once more the Lancastrians were in full control. Then 
it was that York determined to gain power by force. With- 
drawing to the north, he gathered to himself the earls of 
Salisbury and Warwick, and attacked the forces of the king 
and Somerset at St. Albans, May 22, 1455.* The Yorkists 
were successful and Somerset was slain. 

Declaring that his acts were directed against the bad ad- 

1 Colby, No. 46. 

2 Kendall, No. 39; Durham, Part II, Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6. 

3 Durham, Part II, No. 9. 

* Durham, Part II, No. 10. 6 Durham, Part II, No. 11. 



212 THE WARS OF THE ROSES. [1459 

visers of the king, the duke of York was pardoned by Henry, 
and when, later in the year, the king again became insane, was 
for the second time declared Protector by parliament. Again 
the king recovered his health in 1456, again was York dis- 
missed. But this time, as the king took the government into 
his own hands, and as Margaret of Anjou suffered her husband 
to rule alone, there was no pretext available for a Yorkist 
movement. For two years the king governed, and each year 
the condition of the kingdom became worse. Attacks were 
made by the Scots on the north and by the French on the 
south, oppression prevailed within, and insecurity was felt 
everywhere. All realized that the conditions were unbearable, 
and in 1458 an effort at reconciliation between the parties was 
made.^ This reconciliation lasted for a year, but as long as 
Margaret of Anjou had any influence the peace could not be 
kept. The party lines were too sharply drawn, the hatreds 
and ambitions too well defined for a permanent agreement to 
be reached. 

Trivial causes were enough to bring matters to a crisis. In 
1459 a quarrel between the servants of the king and those 
of the earl of Warwick brought on civil war. The earl of 
Salisbury, father of Warwick, won a victory in a skirmish at 
Bloreheath, September 22, 1459,^ and immediately the Yorkists 
gathered their forces, determined to decide the issue by arms. 
But the king, by appealing to the loyalty of his people, by 
promising pardons to those who opposed him, and by threats, 
managed to break up the Yorkist army. The duke, in despair, 
fled to Ireland, while Warwick and Salisbury, after many vicis- 
situdes, reached Calais. The Yorkist leaders were attainted.^ 

1 Durham, Part II, No. 13. 2 Durham, Part II, No. 15. 

8 A careful distinction must be made between attainder and impeachment. 
An act of attainder was simply an act of parliament condemning to death 
or outlawry an individual, a family, or a number of party leaders without 
the formality of a trial. It was used either in times of great excitement and 
factional struggle, when evidence was wanting and haste was necessary ; or in 
the reign of a despotic king like Henry VIII, who desired a speedy way of 
ridding himself of his enemies. If a person were attainted for a felony, that 




Laucastriaa Estates 
I I York Estates 

SCALE OF MIIES 



10 20 40 GO 



Longitude "West 



1460] YORKIST ATTEMPT TO SEIZE THE CROWN. 213 

154. The Wars of the Roses: II (1460-1461). Attempt of 
Yorkists to seize the Crown. — Thus far the war had been in the 
main a struggle of one party of the nobility to improve the 
government of the kingdom and to remove from the side of 
the king his bad advisers. From this time, however, it became 
a deliberate attempt on the part of the Yorkists to seize the 
crown as their right. The three earls, Warwick, Salisbury, 
and Rutland, after spending six months in preparation, 
landed, in June, 1460, on the coast of Kent and were hailed 
with acclaim by the people.^ The Yorkists, as had been 
apparent since the rebellion of Jack Cade, had found their 
support in the towns and among the yeomanry. London 
opened its gates to the earls, who now published proclama- 
tions, giving as their reasons for their coming the bad admin- 
istration of the lands, the perversion of justice, the heavy 
taxation, the squandering of the patrimony of the king, and 
the extortionate practices of sheriffs and purveyors in the 
counties and townships.^ The first battle was fought at 
Northampton on July 10, 1460, where the Yorkists were 
victorious. The king was captured, and great numbers of Lan- 
castrian knights and nobles were slain.^ Immediately a par- 
liament was summoned, which repealed the act of attainder 
against the Yorkists and passed another against Margaret and 
the Lancastrian leaders. 

The duke of York returned from Ireland, and changing 
his policy, made an open demand for the crown."* This meant 
the deposition of Henry VI, and to this extreme the lords 



is, for any high crime except treason, he alone was affected; if for treason, 
his family and descendants were liable to suffer " corruption of blood." 
Medley, Constitutional History, pp. 154, 164; Adams and Stephens, pp. 195> 
218, 361. The definition of ti-eason, as fixed at this time (1397) by act of 
parliament, can be found in Adams and Stephens, No. 99. Impeachment was 
a formal charge preferred by the House of Commons against a minister or 
other high official for misgovernment or other cause. The person thus in- 
dicted was tried by the House of Lords. Adams and Stephens, pp. 132, 148. 

i Durham, Part II, No. 17. 3 Durham, Part II, No. 18. 

« Cf. Durham, Part II, No. 14. * Durham, Part II, No. 19. 



214 



THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 



[1461 



were unwilling to go. A compromise was reached whereby it 
was agreed that Henry should retain the crown for life and 
that Richard of York should be his heir.^ But Margaret 
refused to surrender the rights of her son, and gathered about 
her the nobles of the north, where lay the strength of the 
Lancastrian party. Supported by the Percys, the Nevilles, 
and other border barons, she met the Yorkist forces at 
Wakefield and won a victory in which the duke of York 
himself was slain (December 30, 1460).^ The Lancastrians 
displayed great ferocity, and scores of the Yorkist leaders 
were killed. Salisbury was captured after the battle and 
beheaded. 

Civil war was now in full swing. The young Edward, Earl 
of March, now Duke of York, took up his father's cause and 
defeated the Lancastrians of Wales (Tudors and Pembrokes) 
at Mortimer's Cross on February 2, 1461 ; but this victory was 
offset by that of the northern Lancastrians at St. Albans on 
the 17th. Each battle was followed by a merciless slaughter 
of prisoners, and atrocities and reprisals accompanied this duel 
to the death between the great feudal parties. At London, 
whither Margaret of Anjou dared not take her northern fol- 
lowers on account of their lawless character, Edward of York 
was proclaimed king, as Edward IV, by a council of lords and 
the commons of the city. 

THE YORKIST FAMILY. 



Eichard, Duke of York, 

killed at Wakefield, 1460 

I 



Edward IV» Elizabeth Margaret = Charles George, Duke=Elizabeth Eichard III 



Woodville 



the Bold of Clarence 
died 1478 



Elizabeth = 
Henry VII 



Edward V 
1483 



Eichard 

Duke of York 

1483 



Neville 



Edward 

Earl of Warwick, 

executed 1499 



= Anne 
Neville 



Edward 
d. 1484 



Eut- 
land 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 128; Durham, Part II, No. 20. 

2 Durham, Part II, No. 21. 



1467] EDWARD'S STRUGGLE TO MAINTAIN HIS CROWN. 215 

The object of the war was to maintain the title thus won. 
Edward and Warwick, gathering their forces, hastened north- 
ward, and meeting the Lancastrians at Towton (March 29, 
1461), fought a battle of revenge on a bleak hillside during 
a blinding snowstorm.^ The Lancastrians were defeated with 
such a slaughter of the northern nobles as to show the desper- 
ate ferocity of the Yorkists. People said that the slain num- 
bered twenty-eight thousand men. 

155. The Wars of the Roses : III (1461-1471). Struggle of 
Edward IV to maintain his Crown. — Edward was crowned at 
London on June 30, 1461, and his title was confirmed by 
parliament. The four years from 1461 to 1465 were occupied 
with successful efforts to complete the victory. Margaret fled 
to Flanders;^ the battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham 
broke the power of the Percys ; while Henry, Duke of Som- 
erset, son of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and one of the last 
of the house of Beaufort, was captured and beheaded. No 
mercy was shown on either side. 

For four years Edward and Warwick ruled together, — the 
one as king, the other as the real power at the head of the 
kingdom. Finally, Edward wearied of Warwick's control, and 
determined to be king himself, in fact as well as in name. 
He thwarted Warwick's plans by a romantic marriage with 
Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a Lancastrian knight,^ and 
began to raise members of her family to important positions 
at court. He interfered with Warwick's scheme for a peace 
with Louis XI of France, son of Charles VII, who had aided 
the Lancastrians. He negotiated a treaty with Charles the 
Bold, Duke of Burgundy, the last great feudal opponent of 
the French king, and gave to him his sister in marriage.'* 
And, lastly, in 1467, he dismissed Warwick from office. 

Then Warwick, around whom as the kingmaker and '* last 

1 Kendall, No. 40 ; Durham, Part II, No. 25. 

2 Kendall, No. 41 ; Durham, Part II, No. 30, 
8 Durham, Part IT, No. 31. 

* Durham, Part II, No. 33. 



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1470] EDWARD'S STRUGGLE TO MAINTAIN HIS CROWN. 217 

of the barons " romance has thrown an undeserved halo,* con- 
spired against his king. Allying himself with the duke of 
Clarence, Edward's younger brother, he became reconciled 
with Margaret of Anjou, and bound himself to aid in restor- 
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Warwick Castle. 

One of the oldest and most famous of English castles. The por- 
tion here represented was used for residence and is not older 
than the fifteenth century. With the execution of Edward, 
Earl of Warwick, 1499, the castle reverted to the crown. It 
was given to John Dudley when he was created earl of Warwick, 
but after his execution (p. 279) again reverted to the crown. 

ambitions, and representative of a degenerate and fast disap-. 
pearing feudal class, the kingmaker did what many another 
of the nobility had done at this time — gave his services to 
the cause which promised the greatest reward. 



1 Green, Tovm Life in the Fifteenth Century, Vol. I, pp. 257-258. Oman, in 
Warwick the Kingmaker, 1891, is entirely too favorable; Warwick was not 
a statesman, but the leader of a faction, and he did not rise above his party. 

2 Durham, Part II, No. 36. 



218 THE WAKS OF THE ROSES. [1471 

Edward was taken unawares. Warwick, aided by the gold of 
Louis XI, entered England, and the king, deserted by his follow- 
ers, was compelled to flee for safety to his brother-in-law, the 
duke of Burgundy, in October, 1470. Henry VI was restored. 
But the Lancastrian success lasted for less than six months. 
In March, 1471, Edward, aided in his turn by the wealth of the 
duke of Burgundy, landed at Eavenspur and marching toward 
London met Warwick and the Lancastrians at Barnet, April 
14, 1471, and won a decisive victory.* To the lasting benefit 
of England, Warwick was slain, and with him his brother. Lord 
Montague, and other Lancastrian leaders. Important though 
the victory was, Edward had still to reckon with Margaret of 
Anjou, who, on the very day of the battle of Barnet, had 
landed at Weymouth, on the coast of England. The final 
engagement took place at Tewkesbury, and again Edward won 
the day. The young Prince of Wales, Margaret's son, was 
slain, it is said, by Richard, Earl of Gloucester, Edward's 
brother. No important Lancastrian noble survived the battle 
and the vengeance of the Yorkists. Even the old King Henry 
was put to death in the Tower, on May 21, probably at the 
instigation of King Edward himself.^ 

156. Edward IV as Undisputed King : Foreign and Commercial 
Policy. — A terrible fate had fallen on the Lancastrian house ; 
not a member remained to thwart the policy of the Yorkist 
king. Edward now entered upon the last period of his reign, 
which was in the main peaceful. He undertook a war with 
France in 1475, to aid his brother-in-law, Charles the Bold, in 
the latter's struggle with his liege lord, Louis XI ;^ and 
another in 1482 with the Scots, to dethrone James III (who 
had been friendly to the cause of the Lancastrians, and whose 
aunt had married Louis XI before Louis became king), and to 
place in his stead on the Scottish throne his exiled brother, 
Alexander, Duke of Albany. Beyond these expeditions. 



1 Kendall, Nos. 42, 43; Durham, Part II, Nos. 37^4. 

2 Durham, Part II, Nos. 45-47. » Durham, Part II, No. 50. 



1471-1483] EDWARD IV AS UNDISPUTED KING. 



219 



which came to little, Edward showed no warlike zeal ; and the 
most important consequence of his wars was the introduction 
of a new method of raising money by compelling the wealthy 
to make to the king loans or free gifts, called benevolences.^ 
In 1478 Edward took vengeance on his own brother, the " per- 
jured CHarence'^ (p. 217), and caused him to be executed, — 
to be drowned, we are 
told, in a butt of Malmsey 
wine.^ 

Edward was a man of 
energy and ability and 
great military sagacity, 
but he was cruel, idle, 
and sensual. He lived a 
hard life, and died at the 
early age of forty-one. 
Popular sympathy was 
with him generally dur- 
ing the long struggle, 
and he in return did a 
great deal to promote the 
welfare of the burgher 
and commercial classes. 
As early as 1463 parlia- 
ment had forbidden the 
importation of foreign 
corn into England, hoping 
in that way to improve 
the' condition of the farm- 
ing classes. Later it had prohibited the importation of foreign 
manufactured goods into England, that an interest in manu- 
facturing might spring up at home. Parliament also passed 
a statute in 1465, regulating the manufacture of cloth; and 
it further discouraged the exportation of wool, that the weavers 




Edward IV. 

From Vertue's engraving, based on 
"an antient painting in the royal 
collection at Kensington Palace." 



1 Durham, Part II, Nos. 53, 54, 55. 



2 Durham, Part U, Nos. 49, Sa 



220 THE WARS OF THE ROSES. [1483 

miglit not be deprived of material for their work. On the 
commercial side, Edward arranged treaties with Denmark, 
Burgundy,^ and the Hanse towns, the importance of which 
became manifest in 1470, when all the great trading bodies, 
the Hanseatic League and the Flemish and Dutch corporations, 
persuaded the duke of Burgundy to aid Edward to recover his 
throne. Edward encouraged shipping, built up the nav}^, and 
began the restoration of England's control of the adjoining 
waters, and in so doing prepared the way for the expansion of 
England's commerce and sea power during the reign of the 
Tudors. He died in 1483, leaving three children — two boys 
and a girl — a prey to the factions that he himself had scarcely 
been able to control. The eldest of the children succeeded 
him as Edward V, with his brother, Richard of Gloucester, as 
regent during the boy's minority. 

157. Usurpation of Richard of Gloucester. — As an ally of 
Edward IV, Richard of Gloucester had shown himself a strong 
military leader and a faithful associate in the war against the 
Lancastrians. But he lived at a time when men were cruel 
and unscrupulous, ready to resort to acts of vengeance in order 
to overthrow their enemies and to attain their ambitions. 

Richard with all his ability seems to have been in no way 
different from his brother, or from others who had been guilty 
of deeds of merciless brutality. He was charged with having 
murdered the son of Henry VI after the battle of Tewkesbury, 
with having stabbed Henry himself in the Tower, with having 
stirred up Edward to the execution of Clarence. Now, as 
regent for the young king, Edward V, he filled the measure 
of his evil deeds by slaying the nobles who opposed him and 
by putting out of the way the heirs to the throne.^ 

First, in 1483, he struck down the Woodvllles, whom Edward 
had raised to positions of prominence, by causing Lord Rivers 
and Lord Grey to be executed, and by putting to death Lord 
Hastings of the king's council, who had joined the Woodvilles 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 130. 2 Durham, Part II, Nos. 57-61. 



1484] EICHAED III. 221 

against him. Then, declaring that the marriage between 
Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville had been invalid,^ and 
that their children were consequently illegitimate, he caused the 
king and the king's brother, the duke of York, to be seized and 
imprisoned in the Tower. Parliament, packed with the enemies 
of the Woodvilles, proclaimed Eichard king on June 25, and on 
July 6 caused him to be crowned.^ During the summer or au- 
tumn of 1483 the princes were put to death.^ History has laid 
the crime at the feet of Richard, and there is no good reason to 
doubt the truth of the verdict. But the facts were not at first 
known, and Richard was able to retain his hold upon the people. 

158. Richard III. — For a year he ruled with no little 
wisdom, aiming evidently at strengthening his position by 
making friends with all classes. He concluded a truce with 
Scotland, entered into amicable arrangements with Burgundy 
and the papacy, released prisoners, and conciliated influential 
nobles by lavish grants and important offices. He continued 
Edward TV's policy of forbidding foreign imports and strength- 
ening the navy, but he abolished the " benevolences," whereby 
Edward had sought to obtain money for his wars."* 

All this proved vain. Steadily Richard's popularity de- 
creased and his supporters deserted him. Before October, 
1484, a conspiracy had been formed against him, under the 
headship of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who through his 
mother, Margaret . Beaufort, niece of Edmund Somerset, was 
descended from John of Gaunt. Richard struggled to main- 
tain his position,^ but misfortune after misfortune came upon 



1 The reasons were these: no banns had been published, the service had 
been performed in a profane (unconsecrated) place, a private chamber, and 
the king had already plighted his troth to Dame Eleanor Butteler, daughter 
of the earl of Shrewsbury. According to the idea of the time, troth-plight 
was deemed as binding as a legal marriage. 

2 In January of the following year parliament passed an act establishing 
Richard's title to the crown. Adams and Stephens, No. 131. 

8 Colby, No. 48; Durham, Part II, No. 62. 

^ Adams and Stephens, No. 133. 

fi See his proclamation against Henry ; Durham, Part II, No. 67. 



222 THE WARS OF THE ROSES. [1485 

him. His son died in 1484, his wife in 1485. Finally, when 
in June of the latter year Richmond landed at Milford Haven, 
Richard knew that his cause was lost. On Bosworth Field he 
was defeated and slain, and Richmond was proclaimed king as 
Henry VII.^ The Wars of the Roses were over, and for Eng- 
land the Middle Ages had ended. 

159. The Results of the Wars. — The Wars of the Roses had 
been a duel to the death between the great baronial families. 
In every case the victor had followed up the successful battle 
with vindictive cruelty, putting to death all those who fell 
into his hands. Warwick had commanded his men to slay all 
the knights and n^jbles at Northampton; Lord Clifford had 
stabbed the young Rutland, Richard of York's son, at Wake- 
field, with the cry, " Thy father slew mine, and now I will slay 
thee ! " Those who were not killed in battle were, if captured, 
executed without mercy. After Towton nearly fifty Lancas- 
trians of noble rank were beheaded, and after Tewkesbury 
many others of the same party suffered a like fate. In 1485 
scarcely a Lancastrian of high rank was living, and even 
among the Yorkists many a family had lost its leading 
members. This meant that the factional family strife which 
had existed in one form or another for a century was over, 
and that feudalism as a political influence in England was 
dead. 

160. Decay of Villeinage. — At the same time that the Wars 
of the Roses were completing the downfall of feudalism, bond- 
age also was passing away. This was not due to the Black 
Death, the Peasants' Revolt, or the Wars of the Roses. The 
last-named conflict, except as it led to the ravaging and 
impoverishing of the country, probably had but little influence 
upon the condition of the peasantry. The decay of villeinage 
was due to the fact that the old wasteful methods of agricul- 
ture were too uneconomical to exist under the new conditions 
of industry and commerce. By 1450 the old manorial system 

1 Durham, Part II, No. 68. 



1485] DECAY OF VILLEINAGE. 223 

had almost completely broken down.^ Some of the villeins 
had been manumitted by their lords ; others had deserted the 
manors and had taken service in the army or navy, had 
attached themselves as retainers to the great barons, or had 
gone to the towns to become apprentices, to join the crews 
of merchant ships, or to become beggars and tramps. 

More important than these changes were those which had 
taken place upon the manors themselves. The lords, find- 
ing the old forms of cultivation unprofitable, had been giv- 
ing up the direct control of their lands. They had been 
letting them out to their bailiffs or others to manage as 
they liked, paying the lord — now become a landlord — a 
fixed sum as rent. With this change had gone another. The 
villeins, ceasing to do actual work on the lords' land, paid a 
small amount of money instead. The tenant who had held 
his land "in villeinage, according to the custom of the manor," 
now gradually became a copyholder, holding his land accord- 
ing to the terms written on the court roll of the manor. A 
copyholder was, therefore, simply a villein who knew exactly 
what were the terms on which he held his land, and who did 
little or no labor service. He might still bear some of the 
marks of his villein origin. He might be bound to the soil 
and be liable to pay chevage, merchet, heriot,^ and the like ; 
but with the exception of heriot, these payments were en- 
forced less and less as time went on, until they gradually 
disappeared altogether. This process was hastened by the 
breaking down of the judicial power of the lords by acts of 
parliament. Many of the rights which the lords had exer- 
cised in their courts were transferred at this time to justices 
of the peace,^ who were royal officers, and the power of the 

1 Cheyney, "The Disappearance of English Serfdom," E. H. R., January, 
1900; Page, "End of Villainage in England," Publications America?! Eco- 
fiomic Association, 1900; Maitland, "History of a Cambridgeshire Manor," 
E. H. R., July, 1894; and Lipson, The Economic History of England, Vol. I. 

2 Heriot was the portion of the villein's property that the lord could take at 
the villein's death, such, for example, as the best beast. 

8 Adams and Stephens, Nos. 77, 124. 



224 



THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 



[1485 



lords to punish petty offences and impose fines was reduced to 
a minimum. Thus arose a class of men, practically free, hold- 
ing land of a manor, paying a fixed rent and a heriot, and re- 
ceiving their land according to old mediaeval forms in the court 
baron. This remained the status of copyholders into the nine- 
teenth century, when the old forms were all done away with. 










l^:-y. 



m 



Farm-house at Old Sarum, near Salisbury. 

161. Enclosures. — Thus we see that while the great feudal 
families were destroying themselves in the Wars of the Roses, 
the social and agricultural revolution, which had begun among 
the lower classes a century before, was going steadily on. 
The lords were becoming landlords, the villeins copyholders, 
and the manorial courts were being deprived of their powers. 
But this process took on a new form when, after 1450, in many 
of the counties, the old open fields were broken up, and the 
lands which had been hitherto divided into narrow acre strips 
were thrown together and hedged in. Even before 1450 some 
of the lords had begun to enclose their demesne lands and the 
meadows and waste lands in the interest of better farming 



1485] 



ENCLOSURES. 



225 



methods. But after that time began the enclosmg of the 
commons and of the lands occupied by the villeins. 

At first this was for the purpose of carrying on farming on a 
large scale. But soon landlords discovered that sheep raising 
was more profitable than agriculture. Then they began to con- 



vSoniain84i 



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[=4^-,^/' 




'■^Xoit 



1 » I >« P 6 f *^(an 



'Sg. 



^ 



A Map of Chalford Farm, in the Parish of Enston, in the County 

OF Oxford. 

The fields are no longer divided into strips and unhedged, as in map facing 
p. 173. They have been enclosed, and the property has been let out as a farm. 

vert their arable land into pasture, and to turn great numbers 
of the customary tenants or villeins out of their tenements. 
This process had only just begun in 1485, when Henry of 
Kichmond became king, but it continued during the next 



226 THE WARS OF THE ROSES. [1485 

century; and though, as we shall see, attempts were made to 
check it on account of the great discontent and misery that 
it caused, it went on, in Kent, Essex, Hertford, Suffolk, and 
Worcester, into Elizabeth's reign. In other counties, enclosing 
for pasture did not go very far during this period, land still 
remained under tillage, and agriculture and corn-raising con- 
tinued to prevail. In the reign of Edward VI the far-reaching 
effects of this agrarian revolution were to become evident. 

162. The Industrial Revolution of the Fifteenth Century. — 
Until the fifteenth century England had been a land in which 
agriculture was the main source of wealth, and the landowners, 
that is, the old feudal lords, were the most prominent people of 
the kingdom. But the fifteenth century saw the beginning of 
a great change that was not to be completed for five centuries. 
Agriculture ceasing to be profitable, the feudal lords became 
land poor, and a new aristocracy arose, whose wealth lay in 
industrial and commercial undertakings. The growing im- 
portance of towns, trade, manufactures, and capital marks the 
entrance of England on her career as a commercial and indus- 
trial state. 

In the Middle Ages the centre of the industrial life had been 
the town ; and the town, not the central government, controlled 
all matters of trade and commerce. All that kings and parlia- 
ments had done was to make treaties that would increase the 
prosperity of the towns. We have seen that Edward III, in 
his effort to increase the customs revenues, had sought to break 
down the monopoly of the towns by permitting aliens to trade 
in England. But his attempt had failed, and the privileges were 
eventually restored. In consequence of the law of Eichard II, 
which forbade aliens to buy or sell in England, the towns during 
the fifteenth century had command of the situation, and except 
in London, developed an exceedingly narrow and selfish system 
of regulating industry and trade. The craft gilds, which had 
supplanted the old merchant gild, became almost despotic, and 
the weakness of the Lancastrian kings and the disorders of the 
Wars of the Roses left them free to pursue their courses undis- 



1485] 



INDUSTRIAL CHANGES. 



227 



turbed. They allowed no one to do business in the towns un- 
less he were a member of one of the crafts, and regulated the 
details of the business with extraordinary minuteness and care. 
Among the gilds, distinctions began to appear between the 
merchants or dealers, who handled goods, and the artisans or 
handworkers, who made them ; and within each gild, between 
the richer masters on one side and the poorer masters and 



A 






'' ^^S|^^^|M^^^^Vflfl 


Ihr '^ 



The Guildhall, Worcester. 

journeymen on the other. The severity of the regulations, the 
jealousy of the crafts for each other, and the want of unity 
among the members of each gild, led to their eventual downfall. 
The old towns paid the penalty of their selfishness. Under 
the new conditions of trade they were outstripped in the race 
by other towns, in which the old gild restrictions did not exist. 
Towns like Norwich, Exeter, York, Winchester, and Southamp- 
ton, representing the earliest period in the growth of industry, 
gave way before such new industrial centres as Birmingham, 
Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield, which were destined eventu- 
ally to become the leading industrial cities of the kingdom. 



228 THE WARS OF THE ROSES. [1486 

163. Growth of Foreign Trade. — That which broke down the 
supremacy of the old towns and contributed to the prosperity 
of the new was foreign trade. Until the middle of the four- 
teenth century, England, as has already been said (pp. 147, 166), 
had furnished for export only raw materials, such as wool, 
wool-fells, leather, lead, and tin ; and at first the business of 
exporting these materials lay in the hands of strangers and not 
of Englishmen. It was an important step when Englishmen, 
the Merchant Staplers, began to do their own exporting of raw 
material, chiefly wool, to a staple town on the Continent, such 
as Calais (p. 167). It was a still more important step when 
in the fifteenth century England began to work up her own 
wool, instead of sending it to Flanders and elsewhere to be 
woven. This home industry was bound to injure, and eventually 
to destroy, the business of the Staplers, because their supply of 
wool would thenceforth be utilized at home. 

In consequence of the new industry, a new body of mer- 
chants came into existence, exporting not raw wool, but manu- 
factured cloths, and carrying their goods not to one fixed 
place, but "venturing" at first wherever they could find a 
market. These were called the Merchant Adventurers, and 
they boldly competed with foreign merchants in Holland, Spain, 
Venice, and other lands. At first separate towns sent out their 
fleets; but later, individuals acting together in the form of 
stock companies carried on the business, until, at the end of 
the fifteenth century, half of the English cloths were carried 
in English vessels. The Merchant Adventurers, by dealing in 
manufactured woollen cloths instead of raw wool, broke the 
power of the Merchant Staplers ; by doing their own carrying 
trade, they succeeded before 1500 in wresting the foreign com- 
merce of England from the Hanseatic League in the Baltic and 
from the Venetians in the Mediterranean. By the reign of 
Henry VII they had become a regularly organized company, 
carrying the greater part of England's exports in English 
vessels, and laying the foundation of England's greatness as a 
trading and commercial state. 



1486] GROWTH OF FOREIGN TRADE. 229 

Thus we see that while the Wars of the Roses effected the 
overthrow of the feudal nobility, they did not prevent a real 
progress from taking place among the other classes of the king- 
dom. In the downfall of villeinage, the self-reliance of the 
towns, the rise of manufacturing, and the growth of commerce, 
we see the beginnings of a new English society. As has been 
well said, "The men of the new learning, the men of the 
Reformation, the men who revealed the New World, were men 
who had been formed under the influences of the fifteenth cen- 
tury." And the security which Henry VII brought to the 
English land after the confusion of the Wars of the Roses 
made permanent the advantages thus gained. 



References for Chapter IX. — Material for the history of the 
Houses of Lancaster and York is scanty, because the old chronicles come 
to an end with the close of the fourteenth century, and the official records 
do not begin till 1509. Gairdner has written The Houses of Lancaster 
and York (1889) for the Epoch Series ; Oman has contributed a volume 
on the period (1377-1485) for the Political History, and Vickers has 
dealt with the years from 1272 to 1485 in A History of England (Oman 
ed. ) . Two voluminous works exist of great value for the facts which they 
contain: Wylie's History of England under Henry IV, 4 vols. (1884- 
1898) and The Reign of Henry F, 1413-I4I6, 2 vols. (1914, 1919), and 
Ramsay's Lancaster and York, 1399-1485, 2 vols. (1892). In 1900 
Wylie published a delightful series of lectures on The Council of Con- 
stance to the Heath of Hus (1900), which deals with" an ecclesiastical 
aspect of the reign of Henry V and supplements his valuable chapters on 
the Council of Pisa and kindred subjects in his Henry IV. This is the 
more to be appreciated in that Capes in Vol. Ill of A History of the Eng- 
lish Church has nothing to say on these subjects. Capes has, further- 
more, but one chapter (X) on ecclesiastical history from 1422 to 1485. 
Gasquet's The Eve of the Reformation (4th ed. 1908) deals with the 
religious life and thought of the people before the reformation in England. 

Kingsford has written a life of Henry V (1901) for the Heroes of the 
Nations Series and Mowat another (1920) for the Kings and Queens of 
England Series. Both are excellent but incline toward eulogy. Mowat 
has also written The Wars of the Roses, 1377-1471 (1914), a good and 
readable sketch but not a first-class piece of work. Miss Thompson has 
edited Wars of Lancaster and York (1899) and Miss Thornley England 



230 THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 

undey- the Yorkists (1919), both source books. Vickers has written a life 
of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1907), and Stratford a life of Edward 
IV (1910), the latter for the Makers of National ^History Series. 

The great guide to the constitutional history of the period is still 
Stubbs's Constitutional History. The third and last volume of this work 
comes to an end with 1485, and the want of a similar history for the 
later period is felt by every student of the constitutional history of Eng- 
land ; for despite the impersonal style and formal treatment, which 
characterizes the history and makes it hard reading, it is the work of an 
author " whose every word is weighty." Supplemental to it is Baldwin's 
The King's Council in the Middle Ages (1918). 

The vexed problem of the character of Richard III can be understood 
from reading Gairdner's critical articles in the English Historical Beview, 
Vol. VI, pp. 444-464, 813-815, "Did Henry VII murder the Princes?" 
and a comment on the subject may be found in Busch's England Under 
the Tudors, Appendix I, note 1. It is significant that Gairdner, the chief 
authority for this period, who published a Life of Richard III in 1878, 
found no reason to change his unfavorable opinion of Richard when, 
twenty years afterwards, he issued a revised edition (1898). 

On the social and economic condition of the people in towns and coun- 
try, different views have been held, some writers deeming the fifteenth 
century a time of unalloyed misery, others, a period of prosperity and 
progress. Denton, in England in the Fifteenth Century (1899), inclines 
to the first opinion, and should be corrected by Cunningham, Growth of 
English Industry, Vol. I, Book IV. Cheyney, Chap. VI, and Warner, 
Chaps. V-VII, are useful and suggestive. Cheyney's Social Changes in 
England (1895) contains helpful quotations from contemporary writers 
and an excellent bibliography, and the same author's " Disappearance of 
English Serfdom," E. H. B., XV, is enlightening. In the same connec- 
tion Page's End of Villeinage in England (1900) should be used. In- 
teresting and reliable works on social life and custom are Abrams' Social 
England in the Fifteenth Century (1909) and English Life arid Manners 
in the Later Middle Ages (1913). On the Merchant Staplers consult 
Jencks's Origin, Organization, and Location of the Staple of England 
(1908), Sandeman's Calais under English Bule (1908), Lucas's The 
Beginnings of English Overseas Enterprise (1917), and, for documents, 
English Economic History, Select Documents (Bland, Brown, and Tawney 
ed. 1914). An exceptional useful book, dealing with the early business 
men of England, is Fox Bourne's English Merchants (1886), giving ac- 
counts of De la Pole, Canynges, and others. For everything relating to 
the towns of this period, see Mrs. Green's Town Life of the Fifteenth 
Century, two vols. (1894) ; it is interesting and scholarly. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 

164. Character of the Period. — Under the Tudors, that is, 
from the accession of Henry VII through the reign of Eliza- 
beth, a new England was coming into being. Instead of the 
narrow, local life of the manors, towns, and gilds, there gradu- 
ally appeared the larger life of the nation. Men were inter- 
esting themselves not merely in the small affairs of their 
own locality, but also in the larger affairs of the state as a 
whole, and were beginning to see that the welfare of the people 
of all England was of greater consequence than the welfare of 
only a part. Not until men realized this fact, as they had 
not in the Middle Ages, could a true national feeling be said to 
exist. This new national pride enhanced the prestige of the 
monarchs, because in the greatness of their kings men saw the 
greatness of their state also. Under the Tudors the power 
of the kings increased at home, because they catered to this 
growing national feeling. Inevitably their influence increased 
abroad also, for England was becoming not only a state united 
in itself, but also a state among other states, and the people 
desired that their sovereigns — Henry VII, Henry VIII, and 
Elizabeth — should play an important part in Continental 
affairs, not as feudal lords, as in the old days, but as kings 
and queens of England. 

165. Henry's Claims and Character The great importance 

of the reign of Henry VII dies in the fact that it brought 
security and rest to England after the disturbed period of the 
Wars of the Eoses. On his father's side Henry was a grand- 
son of Owen Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, whom Katherine, the 
widow of Henry V, had married, and nephew of Jasper Tudor, 

231 



232 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 




Chapel of Henry VII. 

This chapel was begun in 1502 and completed in 1520. In the foreground 
are beautiful brass-covered gates, bearing the roses of the houses of Lan- 
caster and York. On each side of the chapel are stalls for knights of the 
Order of the Bath, above which are the swords and banners of the members. 



1486] HENRY'S CLAIMS AND CHARACTER. 233 

who had been beaten by the Yorkists at Mortimer's Cross in 
1461. On his mother's side he was a great-grandson of John 
of Gaunt. In his statement to parliament he rested his claims 
chiefly on his hereditary right. But he had also other titles, 
no one of them very sound, yet under the circumstances ade- 
quate. He had conquered at Bosworth Field ; and on the field 
of battle, Sir William Stanley, who had deserted Eichard dur- 
ing the battle, had placed the fallen crown on the head of 
Henry as the only remaining representative of the Lancastrian 
line. Two months afterward Henry was crowned in London 
(October 30), and a week later parliament ratified the act by 
declaring that the inheritance of the crown should abide in 
him and in his heirs.^ In November the pope. Innocent VIII, 
issued a bull in his favor, and in January, 1486, he married 
Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, thus uniting the two houses 
of Lancaster and York in his support. He had not married 
Elizabeth before, because he did not wish to be charged with 
having derived his title from a Yorkist. Yet all these claims 
taken together would have given him but an insecure position 
had he not been a man able to hold against all comers that 
which he had won. 

Henry in character represented the old and the new eras. 
He was a good deal of an ecclesiastic, favoring the church 
and choosing his chief ministers from among the clergy. Like 
a mediaeval king, he was reserved and dignified, something of 
a dreamer by nature, and loved ecclesiastical culture and art, 
as the chapel of Henry VII, in Westminster, attests. On the 
other hand, in his shrewdness and thrift, he was wholly unlike 
a mediaeval king. He had been trained in a school of attainder 
and exile, which made him suspicious and cautious, and he was 
confronted by dangers which made him politic and stern. He 
disliked war, recognized the importance of the industrial and 
wealth-producing middle class, knew the value of money and 
the usefulness of diplomacy, and made it his chief aim to 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 134. 



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[234] 



1494] CONSPIRACIES AGAINST HENRY VII. 235 

strengthen the government at home, and in foreign relations 
to raise it out of the insular position that it held and to give 
it place in the councils of Europe. He was just the type of 
king to prepare England for a great career. 

166. Conspiracies against Henry VII. — To make his place 
more secure, Henry VII had imprisoned the Yorkist heir, Ed- 
ward, son of the duke of Clarence and nephew of Edward IV. 
But this did not save him from attempts on the part of the 
Yorkist leaders to dethrone him. In 1487 a youth, Lambert 
Simnel, personating the imprisoned heir, raised a rebellion in 
Ireland which was supported by the whole Yorkist party, 
even including the queen mother, Elizabeth Woodville. The 
uprising was formidable in that it was aided by Margaret of 
Burgundy, sister of Edward IV and widow of Charles the 
Bold. But Henry, acting quickly, defeated the insurgents 
at Stoke, slew John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, nephew of 
Edward IV, and capturing Simnel, contemptuously made him 
a kitchen boy in his palace. 

In 1492 another rebellion was set on foot with Perkin (or 
Peterkin) Warbeck as the impersonator of Kichard, Duke of 
York, the younger of the princes murdered in the Tower. 
Again the opposition forces rallied about the new claimant. 
Eor a moment they were joined by Charles VIII of France, who 
should have been on friendly terms with Henry, because his 
father (Louis XI) had favored the Lancastrians, but who was 
angry with the English king because of a dispute over Brittany. 
Warbeck' s cause was upheld, as was to have been expected, by 
Margaret of Burgundy, " whose palace," says Bacon, " was the 
sanctuary and receptacle of all traitors against the king." But 
by making a treaty with Charles VIII in 1492, Henry deprived 
Perkin of his refuge in France, and retaliated upon Margaret 
for her support of the pretender by forbidding in 1494 all 
commerce with the Netherlands, of which provinces Margaret 
was the overlord. He transferred to Calais the market main- 
tained by the Merchant Adventurers in Antwerp, and drove 
the Flemish from London. Philip the Handsome, grandson of 



236 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1499 

Charles the Bold, and son of Maximilian the emijeror, held 
out for two years; but the Flemings forced him to yield, and 
in 1496 a new treaty was agreed upon, called the Magiius 
Intercursus} 

Having been successful abroad, Henry now determined to 
break the rebellion at home, knowing that Perkin found his 
chief friends within the realm. He caused eight Yorkist noble- 
men to be seized, and four of them to be beheaded. Then he 
struck higher and put to death Sir William Stanley, who had 
aided him at Bosworth.^ Perkin fled to Ireland, "the soil 
where these mushroom and upstart weeds, that spring up in a 
night, did chiefly prosper." Already, in 1494, Henry, enraged 
by the support which both Simnel and Perkin had obtained 
there, had sent over Sir Edward Poynings as deputy, who 
sought to effect — in what is known as Poynings' Acts (1494) 
— the subordination of the Irish to the English parliament.^ 
Perkin's career was about over. He fled to Scotland, but in 
1497 returned to Ireland, and crossing to Cornwall, was de- 
feated and captured there in 1499. He was imprisoned in the 
Tower, and later, when he and his fellow-prisoner, Edward, 
Earl of Warwick, attempted to escape, their plan was dis- 
covered, and both were executed. 

The struggle with the pretenders, which had continued for 



1 The importance of the Perkin Warbeek conspiracy lies in the fact that it 
gave an opportunity for all the enemies of Henry in Ireland, Scotland, France, 
and Burgundy to attempt his overthrow. A thorough study of the conspiracy 
would involve a study of the diplomatic and commercial relations of England 
with each of these countries for many years. Perkin Warbeek himself is 
really lost sight of in the presence of this greater issue. See Busch, England 
under the Tudors, Vol. I ; Gairdner, Life of Richard III, to which is added 
the story of Warbeek from original records, and article on " Warbeek " in 
Dictionary of National Biography. 

2 On Stanley's connection with the Warbeek affair, see Busch, England 
under the Tudors, Vol. I, pp. 95-96, and E. H. R., 1899, pp. 529-530. 

8 Poynings opened an Irish parliament at Drogheda, which passed the 
statute of Drogheda, otherwise known as Poynings' Law. This provided that 
" no Irish parliament should be summoned or act passed without the previous 
approval of the English king." 



1485-1509] 



THE KING'S COUNCIL. 



237 



fourteen years, had ended in the death or subjection of those 
of the nobility who opposed the claims of Henry VII to 
the throne. But the king during these years had never lost 
sight of the greater needs of the kingdom. He strengthened 
the authority of the crown by extending the jurisdiction and 
power of the king's council and by employing parliament largely 
as a money-granting body. He recognized the value of a well- 
filled treasury and sought to obtain money by means often of 




The Tower of London. 

The building represented is the White Tower, the original Keep built in 
1078, a fine example of Norman architecture. For location, see plan, p. 187. 

doubtful legitimacy. He advanced the general prosperity of 
the kingdom by encouraging commerce, agriculture, and to a 
slight degree, colonization. And, lastly, he made England's 
name known abroad by favorable foreign alliances. 

167. The King's Council. — Henry transformed the king's 
council into an efficient executive ally wdth well-defined 
powers. This is an important constitutional fact, inasmuch 
as the council, from the accession of Henry VII to the days 
of the Long Parliament, was the chief instrument used by 
the king to govern the kingdom. 



238 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. lUSl 

In origin, the council — the great council of Norman days 
— was simply a body of royal advisers. This body since the 
fourteenth century had had a varied career, sometimes aiding 
the king and sometimes thwarting his policy. By the term 
" council " is meant the Ordinary Council — the whole body of 
advisers, within which was the Privy Council, a special commit- 
tee of advice for the king. The functions of the council had 
been extensive, and largely of an administrative and judicial 
character. Before the time of Henry VII it had been accustomed 
to meet in what was called the Star Chamber in the palace and 
there to do business, in the course of which it was frequently 
called upon to consider legal cases for which no redress could 
be obtained in the common law courts. Henry took an im- 
portant step in 1487, when, after the conspiracy of Lambert 
Simnel, he caused parliament to pass an act setting apart a 
special committee of five of the Ordinary Council and the two 
chief justices to consider such offences of the great nobles as the 
maintaining of bodies of retainers, intimidating juries, inciting 
to riot, and the like.^ This special court did good work, and 
many a great lord was heavily fined for keeping too large a 
following about him and attempting to intimidate the lower 
courts. The earl of Oxford, for example, was fined, in the 
money of that day, £15,000 for the livery that he incautiously 
displayed on the occasion of a royal visit.^ 

In 1494, Henry gave definite form to another judicial 
function of the council and at the same time showed his in- 
terest in the middle classes by establishing, without act of 
parliament, the Court of Bequests, or, as it was first called, the 
Court of Poor Men's Causes, for men too poor to sue in the com- 
mon law courts.^ The court concerned itself only with civil, 

1 For the origin of the Star Chamber the best account is in Scofield, A Study 
of the Court of Star Chamber (1900) ; Adams and Stephens, No. 136. 

2 For Henry VH's Act against Liveries, see Adams and Stephens, No. 138. 

3 Leadam, Introduction to Select Pleas from the Records of the Court of 
Requests, Selden Society Publications. Too little attention has been paid in 
the past to this court and its work. Busch barely mentions it under the name 
Court of Appeal, England under the Tudors, Vol. I, p. 269. 



1485-1509J PARLIAMENT UNDER HENRY VH. 239 

not criminal, matters. The advantage of eacli of these courts 
was that procedure in them was simple, honest, and cheap; 
whereas to win a case in the common law courts required much 
money and a great length of time. The common law courts 
were, furthermore, frequently controlled by the landed aris- 
tocracy and in them justice was not always easily obtainable^ 

Thus the king not only curtailed the power of the nobility 
by enforcing the law against them, but he stood as the pro- 
tector of the people against the aggressions of the local aris- 
tocracy. Such a course was bound to make the king popular 
with the nation. 

168. Parliament under Henry VII. — Henry was rarely opposed 
by parliament during his reign, and in the main he was able to 
use that body as a source of supply. This was possible for sev- 
eral reasons. Under the Lancastrians — Henry IV, Henry Y, 
and Henry VI — parliament had been strong because the clergy 
and commons had aided the lords, their natural leaders in par- 
liament, to check the excesses and to limit the powers of the 
kings. But during the Wars of the Roses the clergy had with- 
drawn from political life, the old nobility had been almost ex- 
terminated, and the commons were left without guidance and 
support. From 1460 to 1485 but seven parliaments had been 
summoned, and owing to the restrictions that had been placed 
on the right to vote, these had been elected by only one-tenth 
of the population. Many of the boroughs, too, that sent up 
members were controlled by the moneyed aristocracy, so that the 
parliament was not in any sense a representative body even of 
that tenth. Just as the new aristocracy packed the local juries, 
so they packed the House of Commons and filled it with mem- 
bers willing to adopt the policy of the king, because he in his 
turn favored their commercial and trading interests. We may 
say, in fact, that the king took the place formerly occupied by 
the feudal lords, as the leader and guide of the commons, and 
was able to obtain from parliament pretty much what he 
pleased. 

Kevertheless, the Tudors adhered to the letter of the con- 



240 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1495-1509 

stitution and never violated the prerogatives of parliament. 
They listened with infinite patience to the expressions of popu- 
lar will and rarely went counter to them. They were absolute 
only because the commons suffered them to be so ; and they 
were able to concentrate power in their own hands, because the 
nation believed that a strong monarch was necessary. England 
wanted security, prestige, wealth, and influence, and these could 
not be obtained under the rule of a nobility always quarrelling 
among themselves or of a parliament always quarrelling with 
the king. The time had not come for the House of Commons 
to take the lead. What England needed at this time was a 
strong executive, and that the Tudors gave her. 

Henry summoned parliament but seven times in twenty -four 
years. His object was generally to obtain money, for parliar 
ment controlled the purse strings; but he also presented other 
important matters for enactment as law which were intended 
to secure the royal power. 

169. Henry's Methods of Obtaining Money. — The accumula- 
tion of wealth became almost a mania with Henry VII, and 
as parliamentary grants generally proved insufficient, he was 
compelled to resort to other means whereby to increase his 
revenues. He does not appear to have been a miser, for he 
was liberal at times and loved ostentatious display; but he 
valued a large treasure for the independence that it gave to 
the crown and the strength that it gave to the state. On his 
accession, parliament granted him for life the customs on 
wine and general merchandise, known as tonnage and pound- 
age, and several times afterward granted him subsidies of a 
tenth and a fifteenth. But subsidies were unpopular, as is 
seen from the fact that in 1488 a revolt broke out in the 
north, and again in 1497 in Cornwall, as a protest against these 
grants. Henry, therefore, preferred to make forced exactions 
from the rich by demanding benevolences or loans, which were 
originally free gifts. 

John Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, the king's very 
able chancellor, adopted a method of collecting these loans that 



1485-1509] COMMERCE, AGRICULTURE, COLONIZATION. 241 

is known as Morton's Fork. He instructed the commissioners, 
says Bacon, ''that if they met any that were sparing they 
should tell them they needs must have, because they laid up ; 
and if they were spenders they needs must have, because it 
was seen in their port and manner of living : so neither kind 
came amiss." Later Henry profited by the methods of Emp- 
son and Dudley, barons of the exchequer, who revived the 
old feudal dues and caused those who infringed the feudal 
rights of the king to be heavily fined. With the exception of 
James I, Henry was the last king to demand an aid on the 
occasion of the marriage of an eldest daughter, and this he did 
when Margaret married the king of Scotland in 1502.^ He 
confiscated the lands and treasure of those who engaged in the 
conspiracies against him, as in the case of Sir William Stan- 
ley; and engaged in royal commercial ventures that brought 
him in profit. Little wonder that at his death he should 
have left to his son a hoard of bullion, valued at upwards of 
£ 4^,500,000. 

170. Commerce, Agriculture, and Colonization. — Though 
Henry extracted large sums from those who could afford to 
pay, he was very careful to favor the wealth-producing classes 
in the kingdom, and he showed his progressive spirit by his 
attitude toward commerce, industry, and agriculture. Like 
Louis XI of France, he was a true bourgeois king, a king of 
the merchants. Through his efforts, England made important 
progress as a commercial state, carrying in her own vessels the 
staple articles of the kingdom and trafficking freely in foreign 
ports. In 1489 Henry gave new life to English shipping by 
requiring that all wine and woad from Gascony should be 
imported in vessels owned by English merchants and manned 
by English sailors.^ He did all that he could to encourage 
the Merchant Adventurers, and gave them, in 1505, for the 



1 He was also granted an aid two years later (1504) in consideration of the 
knighting of his eldest son, Arthur (d. 1502). Adams and Stephens, No. 140. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 135. Woad was used for dyeing cloths. 



242 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1498 

first time, a monopoly of the privileges of Continental trade.^ 
Before that time, by a series of commercial treaties, he had 
opened to them some of the ports of the Baltic, North Sea, and 
Mediterranean, such as Eiga (1489), Iceland (1490), Florence 
(1490), Burgundy (1495), Netherlands (by the Magnus Inter- 
cursus in 1496), and Brittany (1497). Through these jneans 
England was able to extend her commerce and to develop a navy. 

Regarding agriculture Henry's policy was a simple one. De- 
siring to increase the number of small farmers, on the ground 
that the farmer or yeoman class was a source of strength to 
the state, he attempted to check the conversion of arable lands 
into pasture. In 1489 parliament passed an act for this pur- 
pose, but it did not have any effect, and the destruction of 
small farms and the enclosing of land for pasture and for 
Fetter farming purposes went on for half a century longer. 

Henry did not enter into the larger field of discovery, and 
at the time when Portugal and Spain were sending explorers to 
the southern and western Atlantic, he rejected the opportunity 
to help Columbus discover a new world. He did, however, 
encourage John Cabot, a Genoese settled in Bristol, England's 
chief maritime city, and granted to him in 1496 such lands as 
he should discover to the west, east, and north of England, 
together with a monopoly of the commerce of those regions. 
Cabot sailed in 1497, on exactly what day is uncertain, and 
reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence Biver.^ He made a 
second voyage in February, 1498, of which little is known, but 
from which he safely returned in the autumn of that year. 
Upon John Cabot's first voyage rested England's title to lands 
in America. Henry did not, however, do anything to make 



1 Lingelbach, " The Merchant Adventurers of England" (1902) (Transla- 
tions and Reprints, Second Series, Vol. II), Introd., pp. xxii, xxvi. 

2 Colby, No. 51 ; Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, Vol. I, 
No. 26. The part played by Sebastian Cabot, the son, is shown by careful 
investigators to have been grossly exaggerated, and hie own tale of his 
deeds to be largely fiction. He cannot be considered as having "con- 
tributed anything to England's maritime greatness." 



1499J FOREIGN ALLIANCES OF HENRY VIL 243 

good the English claims, but recognized Spain's title to all 
lands south of 41° north latitude. English navigators confined 
their attention to commerce in the East and to explorations 
in the northwest, and for a century England lagged behind 
Portugal, Spain, and France in the opening of the New World. 

171. Henry's Foreign Alliances. — Henry knew the value of 
good foreign connections as well as of foreign markets, and 
his reign, for that reason, opens a new era in England's diplo- 
macy as well as in her commerce. In truth, the kings of 
Erance, Spain, Germany, and England were entering into new 
leagues and combinations unknown to the earlier period. Each 
was seeking to gain advantages at the expense of the others, 
and to form alliances by means of treaties and marriages that 
would make his position more secure. The chief rivalry lay 
between the king of Erance and the Emperor Maximilian. 
Charles VIII of Erance had invaded Italy in 1494 to make 
good the old claim of Charles of Anjou to the kingdom of 
Sicily (p. 128), and in 1499 Louis XII did the same, seizing 
the duchy of Milan. Germany and Spain drew together, and 
Philip, son of Emperor Maximilian, married Joanna, daughter 
of Ferdinand and Isabella. Spain wished the friendship of 
England, and a marriage was arranged between Henry's oldest 
son, Arthur, and Joanna's younger sister, Catherine of Aragon. 
The marriage took place in 1501, but the next year Arthur 
died, and the negotiations were again opened. Henry was 
unwilling to lose Catherine's marriage portion, only half of 
which had been paid, while Ferdinand wished to continue the 
alliance, feeling that he would never get back from Henry the 
portion already paid. It is said that Henry thought of marry- 
ing his daughter-in-law himself, but finally Catherine was be- 
trothed to the second son, Henry, afterward Henry VIII. 

Thus Germany, Spain, and England were in alliance. Ger- 
many controlled the Netherlands, which had come to Maxi- 
milian through his marriage with Mary of Burgundy, daughter 
of Charles the Bold, and were now in the hands of Philip the 
Handsome, their son. Every effort was made to draw Scot- 



244 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1500 

land, too, into the alliance. This was finally effected in 1502, 
when Henry's eldest daughter, Margaret, married James IV of 
Scotland, and thus, as events were to prove, laid the foundation 
of the Stuart claim to the throne of England, which was to be 
realized just one hundred years later. 

172. General View of the Last Years of the Fifteenth Century. — 
At the end of the fifteenth century great changes were taking 
place in the world at large. An intellectual revival — the 
Kenaissance — had begun in Italy a century and a half before, 
and its influence had spread to France and Germany. A new 
learning, a new art, and a new architecture bore witness to the 
fact that men had freed themselves from the narrowness of 
the Middle Ages. 

The use of the compass was making possible navigation and 
geographical discovery, in consequence of which a new world 
was opening to the knowledge of men. The Atlantic Ocean 
was becoming a dangerous commercial rival of the Mediter- 
ranean and the Baltic, and England, France, Spain, and 
Portugal, the great maritime states on its coast, were gradu- 
ally supplanting the Mediaeval Empire in political importance. 

Gunpowder was gradually destroying the efficiency of the 
old feudal methods of defence and attack in warfare, and 
infantry were taking the place of armed men on horseback. 
Commerce was raising the middle classes to a position in the 
state of greater importance in the eyes of kings than that which 
the old nobility had so long occupied. The invention of paper 
and the printing-press was bringing the new ideas and the 
new learning to the knowledge of all, and books were taking 
the place of old manuscripts which had been so laboriously 
copied. A new system of astronomy — the Copernican — was 
teaching men gradually but surely that the earth was not 
the centre of the universe, and that the sun did not revolve 
about it. 

The new thoughts and the new opportunities arising from 
these changes altered men's ideas about themselves, about their 
relations to the world they lived in, about their relations to 



i6o§3 HENRY nil. 245 

the church and to God. Already had they begun to doubt the 
teaching of the mediaeval schoolmen and theologians, and it 
was inevitable that they should begin to ask new questions 
regarding their duties as Christians and their obligations to 
their fellow-men. 

173. Henry VIII. — All these things were at work in the 
minds of the people when, in 1509, Henry VII died, and his 
son, Prince Henry, came to the throne as Henry VIII.^ The 
new king was but eighteen years old, handsome, full of life 
and energy, and eager to have a part in every new interest. He 
was young when Maximilian, Ferdinand, and Louis XII were 
growing old, rich when the other monarchs had impoverished 
themselves in war, popular when the others had to maintain 
themselves by standing armies.^ Scarcely was he king when 
he showed his love for magnificent display. The treasure that 
his father had accumulated he spent in f^tes, balls, masquer- 
ades, theatricals, tournaments, and the like. He was himself 
the life of the court. He was the most graceful cavalier, the 
hardiest athlete, the best tennis player, horseman, and lute- 
play er.^ At first all seemed to be for pleasure ; though at the 
very opening of his reign an ominous note was struck when 
Empson and Dudley, charged, not with illegal exactions from 
the people, as might have been expected from their conduct in 
the previous reign, but with conspiracy against the king, were 
sent to the Tower and finally executed. This showed a stern 
will behind the pleasing exterior, a love of power accompany- 
ing a love of display and pleasure. 



1 The influence of the Italian Kenaissauce in England can be traced back to 
the year 1425. It affected court life and court dress, roused a spirit of patron- 
age in the attitude of princes toward scholars, furnished models in scholarship 
and poetry, roused a desire for travel, and furnished many arguments in favor 
of absolute monarchy. Italian merchants and bankers had been in England 
since the thirteenth century, and had left an indelible impression upon the 
methods and instruments employed. See Einstein's delightful work, The 
Italian Renaissance in England (1901). 

2 Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 1 (Cheyney, "The Early Reforma- 
tion Period in England "), pp. 3, 4 ; Colby, No. 53, A. 8 Kendall, No. 44. 



246 



THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 



[1610 



174. The New Learning at Oxford. — During the early years 
of his reign Henry had become interested in a new movement 
at Oxford, and had shown himself a friend and patron of the 
men connected with it. These were John Colet, Thomas 
More, Desiderius Erasmus, Grocyn, Linacre, and others. 
Colet,^ the first of these, had spent some time in Italy and had 

studied Greek, not for the 
sake of reading the classics, 
but in order to interpret the 
New Testament. Eeturning 
to England, he had begun to 
expound the Epistles of St. 
Paul, as books to be under- 
stood without regard to what 
the mediaeval theologians 
had said about them. But 
the chief work of Colet was 
the founding of a public 
school, entirely different from 
the monastic schools, and 
free from all scholastic teach- 
ing. The founding of St. 
Paul's School marked a new 
era in the history of educa- 
tion, for later public schools 
and grammar schools were modelled after it.^ 

While Colet was doing this great work for education, Eras- 
mus ^ was striking a blow at the old ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion and practice. He was a pupil of Colet's, a friend of 




John Colet. 
Dean of St. Paul's. — From 
the drawing by Holbein. 



1 Colby, No. 52. 

2 The beginning of the grammar scbools can be traced to the towns of the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Green, Town Life,Yo\. II, pp. 12-19. See 
also Leach's English Schools at the Reformation, where the writer enumer- 
ates two hundred and four schools in existence in some form or other as early 
as 1548. 

8 The best life of Erasmus is by Emerton, Desiderius Erasmus (1899). 



1516] THE NEW LEARNING AT OXFORD. 247 

More% and had learned Greek from Grocyn. It was at More's 
house that he wrote his famous work, Praise of Folly, in which 
he exposed to ridicule the priests and monks of that day, with 
their narrow theology, their ignorance, pedantry, and supersti- 
tions. He also translated into Latin the New Testament with 
an accuracy never before attained, for he brought to bear upon 
it the same rules of philology and criticism that students 
were applying to the classical authors. His work was revolu- 
tionary in that it furnished a new text, free from the errors 
which were knovni to be present in the authorized version, the 
Vulgate. 

More's influence was rather political than educational or 
religious. In 1516 he issued A Description of the Republic of 
Utopia (Nowhere). The first part of this work is a treatise 
on the miseries of the people,^ the second an attack in dis- 
guise on the political and social vices of the time. In this 
ideal state the people chose their prince for life, they chose 
the royal council, they avoided war; their welfare was the 
object of all government; they possessed better homes, shorter 
hours of work, property in common, freedom of speech, intel- 
lectual and social happiness. The Utopia was first written in 
Latin and not translated into English until 1551.^ 

With this group of scholars, known as the "Oxford Ke- 
formers," Henry VIII at first identified himself. He saw 
in their work nothing revolutionary ; he believed their purpose 
to be the purification of the church, not separation from it. 
He made Colet court preacher. More under-sheriff of London 
and afterward chancellor, and gave Erasmus a professorship 
at Cambridge. Both the king and the reformers were at this 
time devotedly attached to the Orthodox church and had no 
sympathy with any one who, like Luther in Germany, was 
ready to create a schism in the church by separating from it. 



•^ Colby, No. 55; Kendall, No. 62. 

^ For tb€ i>ersonality of More, see Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 1 
(Cheyney;, pp. 8-16 j Kendall, No. 45. 



248 



THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 



[1511 



But Henry VIII was not destined to be a Renaissance king. 
He was too fond of power, too ready to enter on wars and to 
juggle with diplomacy. In the years that were to come, 
instead of following the teaching of the Oxford reformers and 
favoring peace and toleration, he became hard, cruel, vin- 
dictive, intolerant, and full of ingratitude. In no one par- 




Henry VIII AS A Patron of Learning. 

From Vertue's engraving for the Oxford Almanac of 
the year 1748. Wolsey stands at the king's left hand. 

ticular did the England of Henry YIII resemble the Utopia 
of which Thomas More had dreamed, and it is, therefore, little 
wonder that the first revival of learning in England should 
have come to an early and untimely end. 

175. Foreign Alliances: Cardinal Wolsey. — Henry's foreign 
relations were complicated. Even while indulging in the 
pleasures at court and listening to the Oxford reformers, he 
was planning to take a part in affairs abroad. Just after his 



1613] WOLSEY'S DIPLOMACY. 249 

accession he had married Catherine of Aragon, his brother's 
widow, less from love than from a desire to keep up the alli- 
ance with Spain. In 1511 he had joined the Holy League, 
founded by Pope Julius II, with Maximilian, the emperor, 
and Ferdinand, king of Spain, against France, whose king, 
Louis XII, was making himself too strong in Italy. 

This policy of opposition to France was popular in Eng- 
land because the people had not forgotten the days of Crecy, 
Poitiers, and Agincourt. A statesman arose at this time 
who, though a churchman, was to display greater genius in 
matters of diplomacy than in matters of religion. Thomas 
Wolsey had been royal chaplain in 1506, and during the 
years that followed, had shown himself successful in various 
diplomatic missions intrusted to him by the king. He took 
up the French war with enthusiasm, and planned an invasion 
of France by way of the Netherlands. On August 17, 1513, 
was fought, at Guinegate, the " battle of the spurs," in which 
the French were defeated, fleeing from the field of battle as 
fast as their horses could carry them. 

This war with France naturally aroused the Scots, the time- 
honored allies of France. Taking advantage of Henry's ab- 
sence, James IV, whose love for Scotland was greater than 
his love for his brother-in-law (Henry VIII), invaded England, 
but was met by an English army, under the earl of Surrey, at 
Flodden Field, near the Tweed, September 9, 1513. The day 
of Flodden was a sad day for Scotland. James IV was slain, 
and with him the bravest of the Scottish lords, the flower of 
Scottish chivalry. All Scotland wept for its king, and for 
twenty years remained quiet within its borders. 

176. Wolsey' s Diplomacy. — Henry soon discovered that as 
his relationship with the Scottish king had not saved England 
from attack on the north, so his relationship with Ferdinand, 
who was his father-in-law, and with Maximilian, whose son, 
Philip, had married his wife's sister, Joanna, was not going 
to help him in his desire to make conquests in France. In 
fact, Ferdinand and Maximilian were using Henry as a cat's- 



250 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1520 

paw. Therefore Wolsey, who completely controlled the for- 
eign policy of the king, determined to effect a change. In 
1513 secret negotiations were opened with France, and 
Henry's sister, Mary, was married in October, 1514, to 
Louis XII. This would probably have accomplished the de- 
sired result had not, unluckily for all except Mary, Louis XII 
died in 1515. As Ferdinand of Spain died the next year, and 
Maximilian, the emperor, in 1519, the diplomatic negotiations 
had to be all done over again, and Wolsey showed wonder- 
ful skill in piloting his king through the delicate and compli- 
cated situation created by these changes. Francis I succeeded 
Louis XII in France, and Charles I not only succeeded Ferdi- 
nand in Spain, but in 1519, when a new emperor was elected 
in Germany, was also chosen to succeed his grandfather, 
Maximilian, under the title of Charles V. Charles I of 
Spain became Charles V, the emperor, and having Spain, 
the Indies, Sicily, Naples, the Netherlands, and Germany 
under his rule, became the most important sovereign in 
Europe. 

At first Wolsey determined to preserve a neutral attitude 
toward both Charles V and Francis I. He arranged a meeting 
between Henry and Francis near Calais, where the display was 
so extravagant as to give to the place of meeting the name of the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold. But the meeting did not mean very 
much, for shortly afterward an interview took place between 
Henry and Charles at Gravelines, where a secret understanding 
was reached against France. This decidedly double-faced pol- 
icy could not long be maintained, for as soon as Charles V and 
Francis began their first war in Italy (1521-1526), Wolsey, 
compelled to decide either one way or the other, finally advised 
Henry to assume his former attitude of friendship for Spain, 
Germany, and the papacy. 

177. Wolsey's Ambition. — This friendship was in accord 
with England's time-honored policy. England's attitude in the 
past and Henry's marriage connections favored an alliance 
with Germany and the papacy against France. Charles V was 



1622] 



WOLSEY'S AMBITION. 



251 



Henry's nephew by mar- 
riage ; and with the pope, 
in religious matters, Henry 
was in hearty: accord- 
Charles V, wishing to 
please the pope, had con- 
demned Luther at the 
Diet of Worms (1521). 
Henry likewise con- 
demned the Lutheran 
teachings, in 1522, when 
he wrote a vigorous pam- 
phlet attacking Luther's 
doctrines and sent it to 
the pope, who gave to 
him in return the title of 
Defender of the Faith. 
Furthermore, the pope 
had sanctioned Henry's 
marriage with Catherine 
of Aragon, his brother's 
widow, and had thereby 
guaranteed the legitimacy 
of his one surviving child, 
Mary, who was betrothed 
to Charles V. 

But Wolsey had other 
reasons for encouraging 
the alliance. He wanted 
some day to be pope him- 
self. From dean of Lin- 
coln he had risen to be 
bishop of Tournai, bishop 
of Winchester (1514), 
archbishop of York and 
chancellor of England 




Cardinal Wolsey. 

From an engraving by Mathews of the 
statue of Wolsey over the great gate 
of Tom Tower, Christ Church, Oxford. 
The statue was executed by Bird in 1719. 



252 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1527 

(1515), and finally, through Henry's influence, he had been 
created a cardinal and appointed papal legate in England 
(1517). It seemed a sure step to the papac}^ itself, and 
Wolsey felt almost certain of success. Twice had Charles V 
promised to aid him : in 1521, after the death of Leo X, and 
again in 1523, after the death of Hadrian VI ; but on each 
occasion he had failed to keep his promise. Wolsey still 
hoped, and supported the cause of the papacy against Luther, 
and the alliance of Henry with Charles V, because only thereby 
could he expect to gain his great end. 

Wolsey's position was a dangerous one. He was hated by 
the nobility, who looked upon him as an upstart. He had 
become very unpopular with the people on account of the 
heavy taxes which he had caused to be levied by parliament 
to pay for the king's wars, and he had given offence every- 
where by his extravagant habits and haughty demeanor.^ He 
was now in danger of losing the papacy, and after that the 
one thing that would ruin him would be the loss of the king's 
favor. 

178. The Divorce. — Skilful as had been Wolsey's diplomacy, 
the cardinal had really gained little for his master, and had 
not a large amount to his credit when he was confronted with 
a situation as unexpected as it was serious. 

In 1525 Charles V had captured Francis I at Pavia, and 
instead of allowing Henry VIII to share in this advantage, 
had come to terms with the French king and let him go. 
Shortly afterward the emperor repudiated Princess Mary, 
Henry's daughter, and married a Portuguese infanta. These 
acts were construed as insults by the English king. Finallj^, 
in 1527, Charles allowed Rome to be sacked, and the pope, 
Clement VII, who was secretly an ally of France, to be cap- 
tured and shut up in the castle of St. Angelo. This act con- 
vinced Henry that Charles V was becoming too important in 
Europe, and that the Tudor house had no further advantages 

1 Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 1 (Cheyney) , p. 2 ; Colby, No. 53, B. 



1529] THE DIVORCE OF HENRY VHI. 253 

to gain from a continuance of the alliance with him. Henry 
determined, therefore, to break with the emperor, and was 
urged to do this by Wolsey, who in despair of help from 
Charles Y, advocated an alliance with France in order to 
rescue the pope from prison. 

But Henry had in mind another scheme, which did not 
originate with Wolsey. He wished to get rid of his wife, 
Catherine of Aragon, who was, as w^e know, the aunt of 
Charles V. He had no son, and feared lest in the event of the 
death of his daughter, Mary, there might be a struggle for 
the throne. But a more potent cause lay in the king's passion 
for one of the maids of honor of his court, Anne Boleyn, an 
attractive Irish beauty of twenty, daughter of Sir Thomas 
Boleyn, and granddaughter, on her mother's side, of the earl 
of Surrey, who had won the battle of Flodden. 

But how could this be done ? A dispensation of Julius II, 
twenty years before, had legalized Henry's marriage with 
Catherine, and it seemed unlikely that the present pope would 
declare the act of his predecessor void. Wolsey at first knew 
nothing of Henry's desire to marry Anne Boleyn and was 
willing to obtain, if he could, the pope's consent to the divorce, 
hoping that Henry would strengthen the alliance with France 
by marrying Henee, daughter of Louis XII. But Wolsey was 
soon undeceived. Henry wished no marriage with a princess 
of France ; he wished a divorce from Catherine that he might 
marry Anne Boleyn, and no other. From November, 1527, 
when the pope escaped from St. Angelo, to the following June, 
Henry, through others than Wolsey, made every effort to get 
the dispensation of Pope Julius declared ineffective. Finally, 
in June, 1528, Clement issued a commission authorizing Car- 
dinal Campeggio and Cardinal Wolsey to hold a legatine court 
in England, to inquire into the facts, and to pronounce judg- 
ment. Campeggio, delayed by sickness, did not reach England 
till the end of September, and then his first endeavor was to 
dissuade Henry and Wolsey from their course. But Henry 
would not yield, and at last, on June 18, 1529, the court was 



254 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1530 

opened. For a montli evidence was taken/ and on July 23 
Campeggio, following the practice of the court of Eome, ad- 
journed the case till October. But during the summer the 
pope, influenced by an appeal of Queen Catherine, took the 
case out of the hands of the legatine court and removed it to 
Rome. This change of jurisdiction meant indefinite delay .^ 

179. Fall of Wolsey. — Henry was enraged. Influenced by 
Anne Boleyn, whose position at court had made possible the 
return to power of Wolsey' s enemies (the duke of Norfolk, son 
of the earl of Surrey and Anne Boleyn's uncle, and the duke 
of Suffolk, who hated Wolsey), he determined on the cardinal's 
downfall. Wolsey had known from the first that whichever 
way the divorce suit was decided, the end was likely to be fatal 
to himself ; for if he failed, Henry was bound to be angry 
and to withdraw his favor, while if he succeeded, the elevation 
of Anne Boleyn and the return to power of her party would 
mean his ruin. Before the end of 1529 the blow fell. Wolsey, 
charged with acting as papal legate in England contrary to 
the statute of prcBminilre,^ was convicted and deprived of 
nearly all his honors and goods. The archbishopric of York 
alone was left to him. Later, charged with treason, he was 
summoned to London, but died at Leicester Abbey, November 
29, 1530. "Ah! Master Kingston," he said upon his death- 
bed to the lieutenant of the Tower, " if I had served God as 
diligently as I have done the king. He would not have given 
me over in my grey hairs." 

180. Thomas Cromwell and his Policy. — Thus far Henry had 
failed in his dealings with Rome. After Wolsey's downfall, 
the duke of Norfolk, coming to power with More as chancellor, 
continued the negotiations, but in vain. Then Henry began to 
listen to a new adviser, and to consider the adoption of a new 

1 Lee, No. 105. 

2 In the account I have followed Gairdner, *' New Light on the Divorce of 
Henry VIII," E. H. R., 1896, 1897. See the same writer's chapter in his vol- 
ume (IV) of A History of the English Church, Chap. VI. 

* Translations and Reprints ^ Vol. I, No. 1 (Cheyney), p. 8. 



1531] THOMAS CROMWELL AND HIS POLICY. 255 

policy. The man who now gained the king's ear was Thomas 
Cromwell, a layman of low birth, but a bold and original 
statesman, a follower of Machiavelli and of Italian statecraft,^ 
and a man well tried in Wolsey's service. He pointed out to 
Henry the needlessness of papal decrees and the desirability of 
throwing off entirely the papal yoke. Henry was not willing 
to proceed to extremes at once, but determined to take such 
steps as would force the pope to come to a decision on the 
divorce question; or, if that were impossible, such steps as 
would prepare the way for a final separation from Rome. In 
this determination Henry was influenced not only by his desire 
to marry Anne Boleyn, but by his greedy longing for the 
wealth of the ecclesiastics and the monasteries, and his eager- 
ness to increase his power over the English church. 

First, in 1530 and 1531, Henry charged the entire body of 
the clergy with having violated the statute of proemunire, be- 
cause they had recognized Wolsey's authority as papal legate. 
This act rendered the clergy liable to a confiscation of all 
their goods. Though the convocations of Canterbury and York 
offered to buy the king's pardon with £ 100,000 sterling, Henry 
refused to grant pardon except in case they recognized him 
as "The Sole Protector and Supreme Head of the Church." 
The clergy finally yielded in 1531 ; and furthermore, the next 
year agreed that they would not meet in convocation or adopt 
any ecclesiastical ordinances withoiit the royal consent.^ This 
attack on the church led to Sir Thomas More's resignation as 
chancellor. More saw the coming revolution, and, wholly out 
of sympathy with the new policy, refused to have any part in 
it. In the same year the high-minded archbishop of Canter- 
bury, William Warham, died, and in his place was called 
Thomas Cranmer, a scholar and theologian of Cambridge, and 
a churchman likely to be useful to the king. 



1 Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England, pp. 291-292, 314 ; Gairduer, 
A History of the English Church, Vol. IV, pp. 100-101 ; Kendall, No. 46. 

2 Gee and Hardy, No. XLVIII. 



256 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1532 

181. The Separation from Rome. — Henry had already prepared 
the way for the break with E-ouie by persuading parliament, 
summoned as his willing tool in 1532, to abolish the payment 
to the pope * of annates, or first year's revenues from ecclesias- 
tical offices. As the pope refused to be moved even by this cut- 
ting off of a source of his wealth, parliament passed another 
act in 1533, forbidding all appeals to Eome from the archbishop's 
court in England.^ Then Henry, without waiting longer to hear 
from the pope, cut the knot of controversy by marrying Anne 
Boleyn, late in 1532 or early in 1533,^ and bade Cranmer, the 
new archbishop, try the case in his archiepiscopal court. The 
court, as was to be expected, declared Henry's former marriage 
illegal, and immediately Anne Boleyn was proclaimed queen. 
In September, 1533, Anne gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, 
whom parliament the next year declared heir to the throne.'* 

In the meantime Pope Clement had decided in favor of 
Catherine, and was threatening the king with excommunica- 
tion if he did not take her back as queen. Thus the issue was 
sharply drawn. Up to this point Henry had possibly hoped 
for a favorable decision from Kome, but thenceforth that was 
not to be expected. He therefore proceeded to destroy the 
authority of the pope in England by taking to himself all the 
powers that the pope had hitherto exercised, and by removing 
the English church from under the jurisdiction of Rome. In 
1534 parliament passed a general act confirming what had 
already been done, placing the clergy entirely at the will of the 
king and abolishing appeals to Rome.-' Then it unconditionally 
repressed annates and placed the nomination of archbishops 
and bishops entirely in the king's hands (^conge d^elire).^ Then, 
declaring that no one except king and parliament could alter 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. XLIX; Adams and Stephens, No. 144; Lee, No. 107. 

2 Gee and Hardy, No. L; Adams and Stephens, No. 145; Lee, No. 108. 

8 The date is uncertain, either November 14, 1532, or January 25, 1533 
Both Gairdner and Fisher, the latest authorities, adhere to the latter. 
4 Adams and Stephens, No. 147 ; Gee and Hardy, No. LIV. 
6 Gee and Hardy, No. LI ; Lee, No. 110. 
« Gee and Hardy, No. LII ; Adams and Stephens, No. 146. 



1535] PERSECUTIONS OF 1535-1536. 257 

the laws of the kingdom, it transferred all dispensation to the 
archbishop of Canterbury, and forbade the payment of Peter's 
pence to the pope.^ And finally it declared that the king, his 
heirs and successors, should " be accepted and reputed the only 
supreme head in earth of the church of England," and that 
they should have " full power and authority to repress, redress, 
reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, 
heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, whatso- 
ever they be, . . . any usage, custom, foreign law, foreign 
authority, prescription, or any other thing or things to the 
contrary hereof notwithstanding." This was the famous act 
of supremacy,^ and it is to be noted that in all the acts the 
pope was invariably styled the Bishop of Eome, and deemed 
to have no more authority in England than any other bishop. 
The separation from Rome was complete. 

182. Persecution of 1535 and 1536 : Execution of Anne Boleyn. — 
In the main these acts were received without serious protests in 
England, although as far as the mass of the people were con- 
cerned, there had taken place no change in their religious faith. 
But there were many who spoke their minds, and against all 
those Henry and Cromwell proceeded without mercy.^ Houses 
of the Carthusian friars, who had been especially blunt in their 
comments on the king's marriage, were repressed, and ten of 
the monks of Charterhouse were hanged. Next, Sir Thomas 
More, finest of all the heroes of the time, and the noble John 
Eisher, Bishop of Rochester, were summoned before a court at 
Lambeth, the archbishop's palace in London. On refusing to 
declare the marriage with Catherine illegal and the Princess 
Mary illegitimate, they were thrown into prison, and in 1535 
were executed and their heads fastened on London bridge.^ On 
April 20, 1534, Elizabeth Barton, a peasant woman, dubbed 
the " Holy Maid of Kent," who had led a movement in favor 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. LIIL 

2 Gee and Hardy, No. LV; Adams and Stephens, No. 148; Lee, No. Ill; 
Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 1 (Cheyney), p. 17. See also Colby, 
No. 56. 8 Lee, No. X09. * Kendall, No. 47. 



258 



THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1536 



of Queen Catherine, was executed at Tyburn, together with 
certain monks who had aided her. 







Old London Bridge. 
Begun 1176, completed 1207. Associated with some of the most famous 
events in English history. The gateway where heads were exposed is 
at the right of the picture. All the buildings were removed in 1757. 
The new London bridge was begun in 1824 and completed in 1831. 

But even greater savagery was to be shown the next year 
(1536). Henry was confronted by many dangers. Ireland 
was in revolt^ the northern counties were ready to rise against 



I 



1537] THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. 259 

the king, the pope had prepared a bull of deposition, the execu- 
tion of which he placed in the hands of Charles V, who had 
recently won a notable victory over the pirates in the Mediter- 
ranean. But at this juncture Catherine died ; the emperor had 
no good excuse for an attack on England, and the bull was 
never sent. Henry now showed his baseness. Disappointed 
in his hope of a male heir, for Anne's only child was a daugh- 
ter, he charged the queen with unfaithfulness and conspiracy. 
After a brutal and revolting trial, during which the king con- 
tinued his revellings, Anne was convicted and beheaded. The 
very next day the king married Jane Seymour, destined to be 
the mother of Edward VI. Cranmer declared the marriage 
with Anne illegal and the Princess Elizabeth illegitimate ; and 
the servile parliament passed a new act settling the succession 
upon the heirs of the new queen. 

In the meantime Henry was showing his masterful nature 
in other directions also. He was beginning to concern himself 
with the dogma and discipline of the church and to attack the 
monasteries. In 1533 John Erith had been burned for denying 
the doctrines of transubstantiation, and during the following 
years others also were condemned. In 1536, with the consent 
of convocation, Henry sent out the Ten Articles, which were a 
kind of compromise creed ; through Cromwell he commissioned 
Miles Coverdale to translate the New Testament ; and having 
despatched commissioners the year before to inquire into the con- 
dition of the monasteries, he began to confiscate their property. 

183. The Pilgrimage of Grace. — These acts roused the nobles 
of the north and led to a very remarkable uprising that had 
noteworthy consequences. The Pilgrimage of Grace was at 
bottom a revolution of the northern counties, where a spirit 
of independence and a devotion to the old forms and ceremo- 
nies still existed, and where rugged border methods still pre- 
vailed. The nobles of the north hated the low-born " varlet," 
Cromwell ; the middle classes there were aroused by the acts 
of parliament and by the attack on the monasteries; the 
common people greeted sullenly the economic changes result- 



260 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1537 

ing from the enclosing of lands ; while all in those northern 
regions resented the religious innovations of the south. In 
October the men of Lincolnshire rose, led by several hundred 
vicars and priests bearing a banner upon which was a plough, 
a chalice and host, the five wounds of Christ, and a horn. But 
this revolt broke down through internal dissensions. Later in 
the month, under Robert Aske, a more formidable uprising 
took place in Yorkshire. The duke of Norfolk compromised 
with the rebels, promising pardon and a redress of grievances. 
But new revolts, in February, 1537, gave the king, who never 
intended to keep his promises, the opportunity of wreaking a 
ferocious vengeance. "You must cause such dreadful execu- 
tions upon a good number of the inhabitants," he wrote to Nor- 
folk, "hanging them on trees, quartering them, and setting 
their heads and quarters in every town, as shall be a fearful 
warning." Seventy-four were executed, including Aske, Lord 
Darcy, and all the abbots of the greatest monastic establish- 
ments of the north. 

The importance of this event lies not only in its effect on 
the supporters of the papacy, but in the fact that it prepared 
the way for the final incorporation of these counties — North- 
umberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, and York — 
into England. Henry II had prevented them from becoming 
a part of Scotland, but since his time they had been outside 
the regular administration, and under the control of special 
officers and councils. They had remained a lawless frontier, 
where feudal barons were privileged and powerful, and depre- 
dations and pettj^ wars were of frequent occurrence. Henry 
VIII, though he had put down this dangerous rebellion, did 
not himself incorporate the counties, but made permanent and 
powerful the special council system that had prevailed there 
for a century. This council, which he reorganized as the Coun- 
cil of the North, and to which he gave extensive powers, had 
jurisdiction until its abolition in 1641.^ 

1 See a very suggestive article, "The Problem of the North," by Lapsley, 
in American Historical Review, April, 1900, pp. 462^63; also the account of 



1536] DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 261 

184. Dissolution of the Monasteries. — Though the rebellion 
in the north for the moment checked Henry's attacks on the 
monasteries, it probably in the end rendered the suppression 
of them more complete. As early as 1534 Cromwell had be- 
gun to break up the houses of the friars, declaring that they 
were centres of hostility to the king. The next year Hough- 
ton, prior of Charterhouse in London, was hanged with others, 
at Tyburn, for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and in 
1539 Charterhouse itself was broken up. 

These acts were merely preliminary to a general attack on 
the monasteries, which had already been planned. They were 
charged with being useless organizations, centres of idleness and 
corruption, of licentious and frivolous life ; but the evidence is 
far from sufficient to prove a condition worse than had been 
the case two centuries before. Archbishop Warham had made 
an investigation in 1511 and had found practically no evidence 
of immorality. Useless they may have been, and in decay 
they undoubtedly were. But these were not the reasons influ- 
encing Cromwell and the king. The monasteries possessed im- 
mense estates of land, the result of ancient gifts. These gifts 
had, however, greatly fallen off in the preceding century owing 
to diversion of benefactions to hospitals and universities, and 
many of the monasteries had become impoverished. In the 
south the people hated the monastic organizations ; though in 
the north, as we have already seen, they still deemed them, as 
they doubtless were, centres of refuge and charity. 

No one can pretend that Cromwell's "visitation" of 1535, 



the Pilgrimage in Social England, Vol. II, pp. 21-25; and for a series of in- 
teresting documents, the English Historical Review, 1890, pp. 331-352; Lee, 
Nos. 117, 118. Dr. Lapsley contends that too little attention has been paid 
hitherto to the part played by these northern provinces in English history. I 
will go further and say that too much attention has been paid to Irish history 
before the era of the Tudors, Stuarts, and Cromwell, and that the space de- 
voted to that subject in the majority of the smaller histories might better 
have been used in working out more fully the influence of the borderland. 
See an essay by Creighton, " The Northumbrian Border," in his Historical 
Essays and Reviews (1902), and Dodds' The Pilgrimage of Grace (1915). 



262 



THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 



[1536 



conducted by unsympathetic and harsli men, was either thor- 
ough or just. Whatever the results of such an investigation 
might be, the monasteries were doomed beforehand. Their 
wealth was their destruction. In 1536 parliament passed an 
act dissolving the smaller monasteries with an income of less 
than £200, and turned them over to the king to do with as he 
pleased; and at the same time it erected a special court, the 




Ruins of Furness Abbey. 

A Cistercian abbey in Lancashire. The . arches are 
Norman and their solidity and strength show the half 
military character of the abbey, due to its location. 

" court of the augmentation of the revenues of the king's 
crown," to manage the new lands and revenues.^ By this 
act three hundred and seventy-six houses were dissolved, two 
thousand monks and nuns dispossessed, and all together ten 
thousand people turned out of homes or employment. 

Cromwell next faced the problem of breaking up the larger 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 150; Gee and Hardy, No. LXI; Lee, No. 113. 

Note also Lee, Nos. 114-117. 



1540] 



DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 



263 



monasteries. The Pilgrimage of Grace aided his cause, for 
Henry used it as a pretext for harsh measures. In 1538 the 
friaries were destroyed, and during the year that followed such 
pressure was brought to bear on the larger monastic houses 
that one hundred and fifty of them surrendered.^ Parliament, 
by an act of approval, gave them to the king. In 1540, one 
hundred more were seized and dismantled. In the course of 




Ruins of Fountains Abbey. 

One of the most famous of the ruined abbeys of York- 
shire. It belonged to the Cistercian order and was 
under the patronage of the Percys. Surrendered 1540. 

the attack many priors and abbots, refusing to accept the 
king's terms, were executed ; while all together it is estimated 
that eight thousand religious persons were driven out and 
eighty thousand others deprived of their means of support.^. 



1 Lee, No. 114., 

2 Gasquet in Social England, Vol. Ill, p. 64. See also the same author's 
Henry VIII and the Suppression of the Monasteries, and Gairdner in 
A History of the English Church, Vol. IV, chaps. IX, XI; Adams and 
Stephens, No. 153; Gee and Hardy, No. LXIV; Colby, No. 57. 



264 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1539 

Though most of the lands were given away as bribes to favorites 
and others whom the king wished to bind to himself, some- 
thing like $75,000,000 (modern value) accrued to the king from 
lands, plate, and other spoils. Forty thousand families are 
said to have profited by these gifts, and upon these foundations 
a new nobility arose, whose interest it was to support the king's 
policy. 

185. Henry's Attitude toward Superstitions and Dogma. — But 
Henry did not stop here. Cromwell set on foot an attack on 
images, relics, and shrines, and practically abolished the privi- 
leges of sanctuary. There is no doubt that these fostered super- 
stition and credulousness among the people and increased that 
power of the priests and monks which Henry VIII particularly 
wished to destroy. But the king had no intention of encour- 
aging the teachings of Protestantism, for he never forgot that 
he was the " Defender of the Faith." He had already caused 
John Frith and John Lambert to be burned, and had publicly 
declared that he would not be a "patron of heretics." In 
June, 1539, parliament passed the Six Articles Act, called by 
the reformers " the whip with six strings," which Henry him- 
self is supposed to have written.^ This act upheld transub- 
stantiation, declared that communion in both kinds- was not 
necessary for salvation, that priests were not to marry, that 
vows of chastity must be observed, that private masses must be 
continued, and lastly that auricular confession was expedient 
and necessary. All who denied the first article were to suffer 
death ; and in the decade that followed, some thirty persons 
came under this decree. Most famous of all was Anne Askew, 
a gentlewoman of rank, who was burnt for saying that " the 
bread cannot be God." 

186. Fall of Cromwell. — Valuable as Cromwell had been to 
the king, he failed to please his master in two particulars: 



1 Gee and Hardy, No. LXV; Adams and Stephens, No. 154 ; Lee, No. 119. 

2 The rule of the church had been that in the communion service the priest 
alone should partake of the wine and tha<^ both priest and people should 
partake of the bread. 



1540] FALL OF CROMWELL. 265 

first, he inclined toward Protestantism, which Henry did not 
like; and secondly, he was not successful as a foreign min- 
ister. The strained relation which had existed for ten years 
between Henry and Charles V had strengthened the alliance 
with France. Now Cromwell wished to go farther and enter 
into combination with the German Protestant princes of the 
Schmalkald League, who were hostile to the emperor. To that 
end he arranged a marriage between Henry, whose third wife, 
Jane Seymour, had died when Edward VI was born, and Anne 
of Cleves, daughter of the duke whose territory controlled the 
river Rhine. Henry consented, but the plan turned out badly. 
Anne was lacking in all that renders a woman attractive, and 
she did not please the king, who promptly got rid of her on 
the ground that the marriage had been "extorted under com- 
pulsion by external causes." Anne took the divorce philosoph- 
ically and settled down in England with a liberal pension. 

Henry, without a wife, soon found himself without allies. In 
1539-1540 Francis made his peace with the pope, and through 
the mediation of the latter was reconciled temporarily with 
Charles V; while in Germany many members of the Protestant 
league were openly advocating peace with the emperor. Henry 
seemed to have failed everywhere, and he took his revenge on 
Cromwell. In 1540 this loyal servant was abandoned by the 
king; and the nobility, who hated him, wreaked their ven- 
geance upon him. He was beheaded on July 28, and from 
that time to his own death Henry reigned without a minister. 

187. Wars with France and Scotland. — From the year 
1539-1540, when Francis committed himself to the cause of 
the pope, war between England and France was inevitable. 
The traditional hostility, now made more bitter by the re- 
ligious rivalry, — for Francis supported the pope while Henry 
opposed him, — was increased by the desire of each monarch to 
add Scotland to his dominions. Henry VII had tried to effect 
a union of Scotland with England when he brought about the 
marriage of his daughter Margaret to James IV in 1502. But 
since that time France had been working to thwart Henry's 



266 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1542 

policy, and through the efforts of Bishop Beaton of St. Andrews 
had brought about a marriage between James V and Mary, 
daughter of the duke of Guise, the most determined enemy 
of the reform movement in France. In the war that followed 
Henry was in the main successful. James V was badly beaten 
at Solway Moss in 1542, and the influence of England in 
Scotland seemed reestablished. A treaty of marriage was 
arranged between Henry's son, Edward, and Mary Queen of 
Scots, the daughter of James V, born the 3^ear of Solway M.oss. 
The peace did not last long. In 1543 the French party in 
Scotland again got the upper hand, and Henry again declared 
war. Hertford burned Edinburgh in 1544, and in the same 
year, across the Channel, Henry captured Boulogne from the 
French. A peace was patched up with Francis, in 1546, in 
which Scotland was not included; but as both Henry and 
Francis died the next year, the settlement of the question was 
only deferred, to come up again in the next reign. 

188. Relations with Wales and Ireland. — Although Henry was 
not successful in his efforts to subdue Scotland, he succeeded 
in consolidating his kingdom in other directions, thus increasing 
its extent and making it more powerful. He had subdued the 
northern counties in 1539, after the Pilgrimage of Grace, and 
in 1536 had added Wales, increasing the number of shires and 
admitting members from Wales into parliament. In the mat- 
ter of administration and law he treated Wales as he had the 
north, establishing in 1542 a special council, the Council of 
Wales, similar to the Council of the North. 

Ireland gave him a great deal of trouble, for the chiefs there 
were constantly at war, and were always ready to help France 
or Scotland whenever the occasion arose. In 1542, after a 
rebellion of the Fitzgeralds, Henry raised Ireland to the rank 
of a kingdom; but though he increased his own dignity by 
this act, he cannot be said to have brought the island much 
nearer to a union with the English crown. 

189. The Revenues and the Coinage. — In his campaigns in 
Scotland and in his attempts to subdue Ireland, Henry had 



1547] INFLUENCE OF HENRY VIII. 267 

been constantly embarrassed for want of money. He had been 
extravagant, but his extravagance was not the only cause for 
the scarcity of money. The truth is, the royal revenues had 
declined. With the growth of trade the returns from land had 
grown less, for the subsidies, — fifteenths and tenths, — levied 
after the ancient fashion, had not increased with the wealth 
of the kingdom, and Henry VIII and the sovereigns that fol- 
lowed him did not, in reality, receive a revenue at all pro- 
portionate to the actual taxing power of the nation, and had 
to resort to exceptional and illegal methods of raising money. 

Henry, in desperation, began to tamper with the coinage, 
first, by mixing more and more alloy with the gold and silver, 
and later, by reducing the size of the coin. Silver coins 
were debased more than the gold, and, consequently, gold 
was exported to the Continent, until, by the end of Henry's 
reign, scarcely any gold coins remained in England. The 
effects of this debasing of the coinage were very disastrous. 
Prices rose rapidly in England, to the disadvantage of the 
landowning and agricultural classes, and commerce was injured, 
because foreigners would not take English coins. This blind 
and criminal policy caused great distress among the laboring 
classes, and beggary and robbery increased. 

190. Henry's Influence. — Henry VIII died in 1547, leaving 
his throne by will to his son Edward, who was to be succeeded 
in turn by his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Henry was a king 
who accomplished much for England, for he supplemented the 
work of his father by raising the kingdom to a position of 
international importance, and by striking down the last of the 
old nobility and giving power into the hands of new men who 
came from the middle classes. Then, too, he was "the majes- 
tic lord who broke the bonds of Eome." But the results of 
his work were beneficial only in the future; the immediate 
consequences of his reign were disastrous. At home he had 
alienated the English people, emptied the royal treasury, 
neglected the welfare of the great mass of his subjects, and 
encouraged bribery and corruption among officials and min- 



268 



THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 



[1547 



isters. Abroad he had broken with almost every ally. The 
pope, Francis, and Charles V were hostile to him, and con- 
spiracies were fomenting in Ireland, Scotland, and on the 
Continent. The favorable conditions that had accompanied 
his accession to the throne no longer existed when, in 1547, 
he passed on the government of the kingdom to his son, a boy 
but ten years of age. 

191. The Howards and the Seymours. — The man who wielded 
the unlimited power of Henry VIII was not to be the young 
Edward VI, but his uncle, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hert- 
ford, later known as the duke of Somerset. During Henry's 
last years a rivalry had sprung up between two families, the 
Seymours and the Howards. The former had been brought 
into prominence by. the marriage of Henry with Jane Sey- 
mour, who had been lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon 





THE HOWARDS. 






Thomas Howard 






Earl of Surrey and 






(1514) second Duke of 






Norfolk, d. 1524 
1 




Sir Thomas Boleyn = Elizabeth 


1 1 
Thomas Howard = Elizabeth Stafford Edmund Howard 




Duke of Norfolk 






d. 1554 




Anne 


Henry, Earl of Surrey 


Catherine Howard 


second wife of 


executed 1547 


fifth wife of Henry VIII 


Henry VIII 


1 


beheaded 1542 


beheaded 1536 
1 


Thomas Howard 
fourth Duke of Norfolk, 




Elizabeth 


beheaded 1572 




1559-1603 


for connection 

with Mary Stuart 

conspiracies 

THH: SEYMOURS. 

Sir John Seymour 




Jane Seymour 


Edward Seymour 


1 
Thomas Seymour 


third wife of 


Duke of Somerset 


of Sudeley 


Henry VIII 


Protector 


beheaded 1549 


d. 1587 


beheaded 1551 





1547] THE PROTECTOR SOMERSET. 269 

and her successor, Anne Boleyn. Edward Seymour was Jane 
Seymour's brother, and after the birth of Edward VI he had 
been created earl of Hertford ; while another brother, Thomas 
Seymour, had taken an important part in Henry's wars. The 
best known representative of the Howards was Thomas, Duke 
of Norfolk, uncle of Anne Boleyn and of Catherine Howard, 
the king's fifth wife. Thomas's son was Henry, Earl of Sur- 
rey, known in literature as a poet. Both families were, there- 
fore, connected with the king by marriage, and both were 
rivals for the king's favor. The Howards were of the more 
honorable lineage, leaders of the old nobility, and upholders 
of the old faith ; the Seymours were newer men, and friends 
of the reform movement. 

In the struggle that followed between the two families, 
victory lay eventually with the Seymours. They were the 
uncles of the king's only son, and had found favor with Cath- 
erine Parr, the king's last wife, who was half a Protestant. 
The Howards, on the other hand, had been unlucky. Both 
their nieces, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, wives of 
Henry VIII, had been executed.^ In 1546 Surrey had been 
convicted of treason and sent to the block ; and Norfolk also 
would have been beheaded but for the king's death in 1547. 
The fall of the Howards cleared the way for the ascendency 
of the Seymours. 

192. The First Period of the Reign of Edward VI (1547- 
1549) : the Protector Somerset. — Henry had made a will, sanc- 
tioned by act of parliament,^ establishing a body of executors, 
of whom Edward Seymour was the chief, to govern during the 
minority of the young Edward. This arrangement was set 
aside by the executors themselves, who chose Seymour to act 
as protector of England and governor of the king's person. 
Seymour, already earl of Hertford, was then created duke of 
Somerset. 



1 For the attainder of Queen Catherine, see Adams and Stephens, No. 155. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 157. 



270 



THE TUBOnS AND THE REFORMATION. 



[1547 



As compared with Henry VIII, the Protector was a mod- 
erate and conciliatory statesman, who honestly desired to 
bring peace to the kingdom that had been excited and stirred 
by Henry's excesses. He refused to continue Henry's perse- 
cutions for heresy and treason,^ and made few changes in the 
ecclesiastical organization. In matters of doctrine he seems 
to have been equally tolerant. The First Book of Common 

Prayer of Edward VI rec- 
ognized the doctrine of 
tran substantiation, allowed 
prayers for the dead, au- 
thorized auricular confes- 
sion, and made obligatory 
the practice of fasting dur- 
ing Lent. 

In constitutional and 
social matters Somerset 
was no less liberal. He 
believed in the full recog- 
nition of the powers of 
parliament and refused to 
interfere in elections. He 
allowed freedom of speech 
and debate, and it is signifi- 
cant that the journals of the lower house begin with his period 
of government. As we shall see, he favored the cause of the 
people against the wealthy and parvenu landlords. There can 
be no doubt that he was ambitious and eager for popularity, 
and was often avaricious and arbitrary ; but relatively these 
were minor faults. 

Somerset has been charged with incompetency because 




Edward VI. 

From a Braun photograph, after 
painting by Hans Holbein, in the 
collection of Sir William Farrar. 



1 Pollard, England under Protector Somerset, p. 121. "During his reign 
there was not a single execution for any kind of religious opinion, and the 
severest penalties that he tolerated were the bearing of faggots by Anabap- 
tists and the temporary imprisonment of two bishops for refusing to acknowl- 
edge the authority of his government." 



1548] RELIGIOUS CHANGES. 271 

he failed in nearly every one of his undertakings. Such a 
charge does not take into account the difficulties that con- 
fronted him, or the fact that the age was one of persecution 
and not of moderation. Henry VIII left a legacy of problems 
relating to foreign, religious, financial, and social matters, many 
of which could be solved by time alone. Probably no man in 
so short a time could have done anything but fail. 

193. Religious Changes. — In two sets of instructions, issued 
in 1536 and 1538, Henry VIII had sought to regulate the 
religious practices of the people.^ In 1547 Somerset carried 
out these injunctions ^ and began a general visitation of the 
kingdom for the purpose of remedying abuses. His agents, 
aided by some of the radical reformers, perf-ormed their task 
with ruthless completeness and a lack of reverence that 
exasperated the people and drove them to reprisals and 
insurrections. Images were torn down, stained glass win- 
dows were broken, and many carvings and works of art were 
ruined. 

Of equal importance were other measures authorized, partly 
by decrees and partly by acts of parliament. The use of ashes, 
palms, and candles on Candlemas Day, and of holy bread and 
holy water, was forbidden. The First Book of Common 
Prayer, compiled in English by Cranmer, was introduced, and 
Latin was abolished. Parliament, in 1547, swept away the trea- 
son and heresy laws, abolished the Six Articles, ordained the 
giving of the wine to the laity in the sacrament, and suppressed 
all chantries, gilds, and fraternities of a religious character.^ 
In 1548 parliament passed one act allowing priests to marry,"* 
and another imposing penalties on priests who refused to 

1 Gee and Hardy, Nos. LXII, LXIII. 

2 Colby, No. 58; Lee, No. 122; Kendall, No. 49. 

3 Gee and Hardy, No. LXVIH ; Adams and Stephens, No. 159. The state- 
ment commonly made that Edward VI founded schools out of the Chantry 
funds has been critically examined in recent years and shown in large part 
not to be true. Leach, English Schools at the Reformation ; Pollard, England 
under Protector Somerset, pp. 121-129; Gairdner, A History of the English 
Church, Vol. IV, pp. 314-315. 4 Qqq ^^^ Hardy.No. LXX. 



272 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION [1549 

use the Book of Common Prayer or spoke against it.^ Here 
again the correction of abuses was too often accompanied 
with a disregard for the customs and traditions of the 
people. 

194. Social Discontent: Kett's Rebellion. — It is commonly 
said that these innovations roused the people of England to 
revolt in 1548 and 1549. To a certain extent this is true, 
particularly in Devon and Cornwall.^ Worshippers familiar 
with the Latin forms and the time-honored practices resented 
the destruction of images and the introduction of the English 
prayer book. 

But the real reasons for the rebellions lay deeper than this, 
and were of an economic and not a religious character.^ Since 
the accession of Henry VII, the enclosure movement, which 
we have already noticed, had taken on a new form. While 
the old manorial system was breaking down and trade was 
growing, thousands of acres were passing out of the hands of 
the old nobility into the hands of newer men, merchants and 
members of the new nobility, who were getting profit out of 
them, without regard to the condition of the people upon them. 
The old manorial lords were giving place to a class of land- 
lords, who racked the tenantry, evicted those who failed to 
pay their rents, enlarged their estates by buying up new lands, 
and enclosed the commons and arable fields without any con- 
sideration for those who tilled the soil for a living.* In conse- 
quence rents rose, prices trebled, and misery increased. 

Wolsey and Sir Thomas More had seen the evils wrought by 
the new landlords and had sought to remedy them. In 1517 
they had sent out a famous commission to inquire into the 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. LXIX; Adams and Stephen.s, No. 160; Lee, No. 123. 

2 ** Cornishmen had violently opposed the Reformation, mainly because 
they could not endure to have their services read and their Bible printed in 
English, to them a jargon more unintelligible than the Latin they had been 
wont to hear from childhood." Eggleston, Transit of Civilization, pp. 95, 96. 

8 Pollard, England under Protector Somerset, Chap. VIII; Cheyney, Social 
Changes, pp. 97-100; Burnet, History of the Reformation, Vocock ed., Vol. H, 
pp. 207-216; Kendall, Nos. 62, 63. ■* Kendall, No. 64. 



1547] THE SCOTTISH CAMPAIGN. 273 

enclosing of lands and to seek means for its prevention. But 
after Wolsey's death Henry VIII had taken no interest in 
the matter, and by Ms distribution of the monastic lands had 
only made the trouble worse. Somerset was fully alive to 
the evils, and was urged to act, not only by an insurrection 
in Hertfordshire in 1547, but by the persuasions of a small 
party of reformers led by Bishop Latimer and John Hales. 
In 1548', following the example set by Wolsey, he sent out a 
commission to investigate the question of enclosures and the 
possible restoration of agriculture. For the same purpose he 
endeavored to carry acts through parliament ; but he was op- 
posed by the wealthy landowners, and nearly every measure 
failed because the leaders of that body were themselves en- 
closers and thwarted Somerset's plans. 

After the failure of parliament to act, the popular dis- 
content, which had been long smouldering, became active. 
Starting in Somersetshire, the rebellion spread through the 
southern and western counties. Hedges and palings were 
torn down, ditches filled up, and parks and commons laid 
open. Kett, a blacksmith of Norfolk, with many followers, 
seized Norwich and established a "commonwealth." But 
the insurrection was put down with great severity, and 
Kett was hanged. The gentry were still too strong for the 
commoners. 

195. The Scottish Campaign. — The opposition to Somerset 
in the council, due to his defence of the popular cause, was 
increased by the results of his dealings with France and 
Scotland. The peace made with France in 1546 not only did 
not include Scotland, but proved of little binding force upon 
France after the death of Francis I and the accession of 
Henry II, in March, 1547. The latter renewed the attempt 
to make Scotland a French province, and though nominally at 
peace with England, aided the Scots in their struggle with the 
English government. Henry II desired Scotland for the con- 
solidation and enlargement of his kingdom ; the Catholic 
party, of which the Guises were the leaders, wanted the land 






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1547] FALL OF SOMERSET. 275 

in order to save it for the old faith, and to prevent it from 
going over to Protestantism. Mary of Guise had married 
James V of Scotland, and was working in Edinburgh to aid 
the French cause. During 1547 the influence of the French 
party increased, and the plan of marrying Princess Mary of 
Scotland to a French prince was again discnssed. This 
scheme Somerset sought to prevent, and, in defence of the 
marriage agreement of 1543, according to which Princess Mary 
was to marry Edward VI, began an invasion of Scotland in 
September, 1547. A battle was fought at Pinkie, on the river 
Esk, in which the English were victorious. Further suocesses 
during the remaining months of the year encouraged Somerset 
to hope that Scotland might be won both for Protestantism 
and for England. 

Somerset's plan did not succeed. France, in June, 1548, 
sent a force of men, ships, and a supply of gold; and a month 
later Mary of Scots set sail for France, her betrothal to the 
Dauphin (afterward Francis II) taking place in October. 
Somerset, involved in insurrections and financial difficulties 
at home, was unable to continue the campaign, and Scotland 
having fallen into the hands of the Catholics was, for the time 
being, lost to England. At the very time when Kett was 
making most trouble in Norfolk, France declared war, and 
began an attack on Boulogne. England, surrounded by a 
circle of Catholic and hostile states, was menaced at the 
same time by France, Ireland, and Scotland. 

196. Fall of Somerset. — Somerset was doomed; his policy 
had not succeeded, and his enemies in the council determined 
to depose him. They charged him with a rash invasion of 
Scotland, with bringing on war with France, and above all, with 
encouraging social disturbance and insurrection. In general, 
they charged his government with failure, ignoring the fact 
that failure had been due, not to Somerset, but to the social 
troubles in England, for which the members of the council, 
the leaders in parliament, and the moneyed class generally 
were very largely responsible. But there were other and more 



276 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1549 

legitimate charges. Somerset had. been arbitrary and over- 
bearing, he had seized church lands, had spent money os- 
tentatiously in erecting Somerset house, and had given 
offices to personal friends and neglected the friends of his 
colleagues. 

But the real reasons were after all none of these. Somerset 
fell because he believed in moderation, had faith in constitu- 
tional liberty, and had espoused the popular cause against the 
rich and avaricious landowners. In October, 1549, he was 
committed to the Tower, and his place, not as protector but 
as leader in the council, was taken by his chief enemy, John 
Dudley, Earl of Warwick, son of the Dudley who had been 
baron of the exchequer under Henry VII. 

197. The Second Period of the Reign of Edward VI (1549-1553) : 
Warwick's Tyranny. — The second period of the reign of Edward 
VI now began. The moderation of Somerset gave way to the 
tyranny of Warwick. " If the Protector had lashed the Catho- 
lics with whips, Warwick chastised them with scorpions." The 
contrast is a striking one, for in nearly every point was Somer- 
set's policy reversed. Warwick got rid of all Homanists from 
the council. He deposed from their sees bishops of the old 
faith, such as Bonner and Gardiner, and sent Bishop Tunstall 
to prison on the pretext of treason. He began a systematic 
persecution of Princess Mary, deprived her of the privilege of 
hearing private mass, and forced on her the Book of Common 
Prayer. With the concurrence of Archbishop Cranmer, he 
began executions for heresy. Joan Bocher was burnt at the 
stake in 1550, and in 1551 George van Paris, a Dutch Anabap- 
tist, suffered a like fate. In 1552 a Second Book of Common 
Prayer was issued, and a second Act of Uniformity passed. 
The new prayer book was distinctly Protestant in character; 
the new act of uniformity imposed severe penalties, not only on 
priests who refused to use the new prayer book, but on people 
who refused to attend the service.^ The next year Forty-two 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. LXXI; Adams and Stephens, No. 162. 



1553] LADY JANE GREY. 277 

Articles of Faith were set forth, defining the doctrine of the 
church.* 

In political matters Warwick, who had assumed the title 
duke of Northumberland in 1551, aimed to be supreme. He 
packed the council with his adherents, and packed parliament 
by interfering in elections and creating new boroughs. Charg- 
ing Somerset, who had been pardoned in 1550, with treason, he 
made every effort to bring about the death of his rival. The 
treason charge broke down ; but Somerset was found guilty on 
the charge of inciting the citizens of London to meet in unlaw- 
ful assembly, and was executed, January 22, 1552. 

198. Attitude toward Social Troubles. — Just as Northumber- 
land persecuted in the interest of Protestantism and manipulated 
politics in the interest of his own leadership, so he dealt with 
the social question in the interest of the landowners. John 
Hales fled to Germany, and parliament reversed the Protec- 
tor's policy, dropping the enclosure commission, and passing 
laws which encouraged, rather than discouraged, enclosures. 
Northumberland. did nothing to alleviate the burdens that dis- 
tressed the people. By his acts he encouraged briber}^, sale 
of offices, and misuse of funds, and continued the debasement 
of the currency, which Somerset had forbidden, increasing 
the alloy, and reducing the value of the shilling coined by 
Henry VIII (testoon) first to ninepence and afterward to six- 
pence. The coinage of England reached its lowest point under 
Edward VI. The miseries of the people were intense. 

199. Lady Jane Grey. — Edward VI died on July 6, 1553. 
By the terms of Henry's will the succession was to go to the 
Princess Mary ; but Northumberland had worked on the young 
king, persuading him, in the interest of Protestantism, to be- 
queath the crown to Lady Jane Grey,^ the wife of his own son, 

1 It has been a debated point whether or not the prayer book and these articles 
(originally forty-five) were or were not submitted to convocation for ratifica- 
tion. The evidence is against their submission ; Dixon, History of the Church of 
England, Vol. Ill, pp. 513-517. Gasquet, Edward VI and the Book of Common 
Prayer, supports Dixon's contention. 2 Lee, No. 126. See also Colby, No. 59. 









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[278] 



1553] CHARACTER OF AGE OF MARY AND ELIZABETH. 279 

Guildford Dudley, and the granddaughter of Henry VIII's 
sister Mary, who, after the death of Louis XII, had returned 
to England and married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. 
By this means, under the pretence of defending Protestant- 
ism, Warwick hoped to retain power. 

But the plot in favor of Lady Jane Grey failed in every 
particular. In the first place, Edward's will was invalid, not 
having been sanctioned by act of parliament; in the second 
place, England would have no more of Warwick, whether 
as John Dudley or as the duke of Northumberland. The ill- 
fated claimant, Lady Jane, who lent herself most unwill- 
ingly to the scheme, was proclaimed queen of England three 
days after Edward's death; but her reign lasted only eleven 
days. The nation rallied to the support of the rightful 
heir. Northumberland was seized and executed in 1553, 
and disclosed the hollowness of his entire support of Protes- 
tantism by recanting on the scaffold and declaring that the 
Protestant cause was a sham. The tide of popular enthusiasm 
which bore Mary to the throne testified to the hatred which 
all right-minded men had conceived for the heartless, time- 
serving policy of this basest and most unscrupulous of English 
ifiinisters. 

200. General Character of the Age of Mary and Elizabeth.— 
The accession of Mary ushered in the inevitable reaction. The 
reform party in England had been unfortunate both in their 
leaders and in their methods, and the support which the English 
gave to Mary's cause was due less to their love for her and 
the faith she represented than to the hostility they felt for the 
attempt which had been made to force Protestantism upon 
England. At the same time they were in large part loyal to 
the old forms and ceremonies, for habits of centuries cannot 
be destroyed in one reign by acts of parliament. England 
would probably have welcomed at this time a moderate reac- 
tion. The difficulty with Mary's work was that it was destined 
to go as far in the other direction as that of Somerset and 
Northumberland had gone in the direction of reform, and in 



280 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1558 

consequence, to undo whatever good results a policy of mod 
eration at this time might have effected. 

The reasons why the reaction was so extreme are clear. 
Mary herself was an overzealous devotee of the old faith, and 
could see no stopping-point short of a complete restoration of 
the old conditions and a punishment of those responsible for 
the Protestant changes.^ At the same time she was acting 
under the advice of the Emperor Charles V, his son Philip, 
and the pope, who were straining every nerve to check the 
growth of Protestantism in Europe. Protestantism was gain- 
ing steadily in Germany, in France, and even in southern Eu- 
rope, and was destined to gain for another fifteen years before 
the tide was to turn. England, under a Catholic queen, 
promised to be the first country where a victory for the old 
faith could be obtained. The struggle was to be long and per- 
sistent. On one side were those who wished to make England 
once more subject to the pope and to limit her national in- 
dependence by forcing her to become a part of a great ecclesi- 
astical empire ; on the other were those who wished to make 
her a powerful, independent kingdom, in which the church 
should be subordinate to the state and the wealth and 
energies of the people be employed for England alone. This 
conflict, which began with the accession of Queen Mary in 
1553, was not ended until the defeat of the Armada in 1588, a 
period of thirty-five years, during which England passed from 
danger to security, and from great social and economic dis- 
tress to a condition of national prosperity. These are years 
of vital importance in the history of England, for they mark 
the close of a long period of transition, during which the 
institutions and ideas of the older time were finally compelled 
ko give way before those of the more modern era. 

201. The Catholic Reaction, First Period : Moderation (i553)- — 
Mary came to the throne in 1553, and began immediately to 
undo the work of the previous reign. She released the bishops 

1 Kendall, No. 50. 



1554] CATHOLIC REACTION: THE SPANISH MARRIAGE. 281 

and others imprisoned in the Tower, — Gardiner, Courtenay, 
Norfolk, and others, — sent Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer 
to prison, and drove others of the Protestant clergy to take 
refuge on the Continent. With Bishop Gardiner as her ally, 
she began to restore the old forms and dogmas. She set aside 
the prayer book of Edward VI, and introduced again the Latin 
mass. A parliament summoned in October, 1553, was com- 
posed of members who had been elected under pressure from 
the crown, and consequently were ready to sanction all the 
queen's acts. This body declared Mary legitimate, thus 
annulling all the acts passed during the reign of Henry VIII 
affecting the divorce of Catherine of Aragon.^ It repealed at 
one stroke nine acts passed under Edward VI, thus restoring 
the church, its doctrine and service, to the position which it 
had occupied at the death of Henry VIII.^ 

202. Catholic Reaction, Second Period: The Spanish Marriage 
(i553~i554)- — I^ these changes the English people readily 
acquiesced. Probably, thus far, the majority was in very gen- 
eral accord with the policy of the government, and greeted the 
return to the old forms with satisfaction. Had Mary stopped 
here, all might have been well ; but her own inclination, the 
advice of Charles V, and the urging of the pope, demanded 
that the work not only of Edward VI, but also of Henry VIII, 
be undone, and that England return to the position which she 
had occupied before the separation from Rome. 

But before Mary could carry out the details of her policy, 
she had to meet the question of her own marriage, and in her 
decision lay an important test of the situation. Charles V 
proposed his son as her husband ; and Philip, the son, think- 
ing to control England and to gain possession of its revenues, 
indicated his willingness to marry the queen, although she 
was ten years his senior. Notwithstanding the fact that 
parliament asked her to choose an English husband, and not 



1 Lee, No. 129. 

2 Gee and Hardy, No. LXXIH ; Adams and Stephens, No. 163. 



282 



THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 



[1553 



a foreigner, Mary disregarded its wishes, and dissolved that 
body as a rebuke for its interference. 

Many of the English took the queen's decision as an affront, 
while others, knowing the character of Philip, feared lest the 




Queen Mary. 

From an engraving by Vertue, based on " a picture in 
possession of the R*. Honbie, the Earl of Oxford." 



marriage should be but a prelude to an entire restoration 
of the authority of the pope. Insurrections took place in 
Devonshire and Cornwall, led by Sir Peter Carew ; in Coven- 
try, led by the earl of Suffolk ; in Kent, led by Sir Thomas 



1654] CATHOLIC REACTION: PERSECUTIONS. 283 

Wyatt. Of these, the last only proved formidable. Wyatt, at 
the head of fifteen thousand men, advanced on London ; but 
Mary, with true Tudor courage, threw herself on the loyalty 
of the Londoners, and Wyatt found the city closed against 
him. He was seized and executed. The uprisings hardened 
the queen's heart. Feeling the need of securing her throne by 
putting out of the way all enemies and claimants, she caused 
not only Wyatt and Suffolk to be executed, but also Lady 
Jane Grey and her husband, Guildford Dudley.^ The era of 
mercy and moderation was past; Elizabeth herself was saved 
from the block only because the queen and the Catholic party 
dared not put her to death. 

In 1554 Mary married Philip,^ and after the marriage, sum- 
moned a new and more subservient parliament, in ord^er to 
complete the work of reaction. This body forbade the mar- 
riage of priests, revived the acts punishing heretics,^ and then, 
in one great act of repeal, abolished eighteen statutes of 
Henry VIII, thus restoring the church, its form and worship, 
to the position it had occupied at the accession of Henry VIII.'' 
It also authorized entire submission to Eome, but stubbornly 
refused to restore the lands which had been taken from the 
monasteries and abbeys.^ The pope, Julius III, glad of the 
return of England to the fold of the church, waived the matter 
of the c-: urch lands, and sent Cardinal Pole as papal legate to 
England. It was perhaps the happiest day of Mary's life 
when she and Philip, and both houses of parliament, knelt 
before the legate, and received from him absolution and a com- 
plete restoration "to the communion of the holy church.'^ 

203. Catholic Reaction, Third Period: Persecutions (1554- 
1558). — The year 1554 marks the height of the reaction so far 
as the outward act of submission was concerned. Yet in real- 



1 Lee, No. 127. 

2 For the marriage contract, see Adams and Stephens, No. 164. 
8 Gee and Hardy, No. LXXV; Adams and Stephens, No. 165. 

* Gee and Hardy, No. LXXVI ; Adams and Stephens, No. 166. 
6 Lee, No. 130. 



284 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1665 

ity the reaction was far from complete. The lands were not 
restored, parliament refused to revive the payment of annates, 
and the statutes of praemunire remained in force as before. 
Furthermore, the effects of the work of Henry VIII and 
Edward VI could not be destroyed by acts of parliament or 
by words of submission. The temper of the English people 
was seen when in 1555 Mary and chancellor Gardiner began 
the work of persecution for heresy. First John Eogers 
was sent to the stake (February, 1555) for denying the doc- 
trine of transubstantiation ; then Bishop Hooper ; and finally, 
in November, Latimer and Eidley were burnt at Oxford.^ 
The next year Cranmer, whom Mary especially hated because 
he had sanctioned the divorce of her mother from Henry VIII, 
suffered a like fate. The majority of the executions were in 
Kent, in the neighborhood of the archbishopric of Canterbury, 
and it is estimated that in all nearly three hundred persons 
were put to death. 

The effect of this cruel policy was exactly the reverse of 
what Mary had intended it should be. The mass of the 
people, admiring the courage of the martyrs, viewed the 
persecution with increasing horror. Thousands who had been 
loyal to the old faith were driven into a position of hostility 
to the government and the Koman party, and gradually south- 
ern England became Protestant. 

204. Relations with France : the Loss of Calais. — The dis- 
content thus aroused found outward expression not in Eng- 
land, where men had resolved to wait for Mary's death, but in 
France, where a body of exiles had been conspiring for several 
years against Philip and Mary. Mary claimed that Henry II, 
the king of France, was aiding the conspirators with men and 
money, and undoubtedly exaggerated the danger from them in 
order that she might have a pretext for putting to death such 
of them as fell into her hands. She caused Sir Thomas Uve- 
dale, governor of the isle of Wight, to be executed in 1556, 

1 Lee, Nos. 131, 132. 



1557] THE LOSS OF CALAIS. 285 

and the next year sent to the scaffold Thomas Stafford, a rela- 
tive of the royal family and a claimant of the throne, who had 
foolishly seized Scarborough Castle. 

But the most disastrous outcome of these intrigues was the 
war that England entered into with France in 1557. Charles V 
of Germany had been warring with France for thirty years, 
and though he had abdicated his throne in 1556, he still con- 
tinued to urge his son Philip, now king of Spain, to prevail 
upon Mary to join the alliance. Hitherto Mary had not been 
able to accede to her husband's request on account of the re- 
sistance at home and the terms of her marriage contract.^ But 
the Stafford conspiracy gave Philip his opportunity, and in 
1557 Mary declared war. The one great result of this war 
was the capture of Calais, which was seized by the duke of 
Guise in the winter of 1557 and 1558.^ The loss of this town 
came as a terrible shock to the English and enormously in- 
creased Mary's unpopularity. In a military sense Calais was 
regarded as of vital importance to England in guarding 
her from invasion. In a commercial sense it was deemed 
the key to the Continental trade, because it was the sta>ple 
town through which all English goods had to pass to reach the 
markets of the Continent. Little wonder that when it fell 
men foresaw military and commercial ruin for England; and 
that Mary, in horror, cried that after her death Calais would 
be found graven on her heart. 

In fact, however, the loss of Calais was a gain to England. 
It severed the last connection of the island kingdom with the 
Continent, and compelled Englishmen to give up plans of con- 
quest in France and of political interference in foreign affairs. 
It rendered an army less important than a navy, and forced 
England to depend more and more upon her ships and her 
sailors. It completed the downfall of the Merchant Staplers, 
and gave a new impetus to the Merchant Adventurers, who were 



1 Adams and Stephens, p. 287, lines 4-10; Gairdner, pp. 383-384. 

2 Colby, No. 60. 



286 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1568 

already trading in all parts of the world and cared no more for 
Calais th^n for any other Continental town. With the loss of 
Calais, England was thrown back upon her own resources ; and 
how splendidly she employed those resources in developing a 
navy, a native commerce, and a colonial empire, the history of 
the ensuing century will show. 

205. Accession of Elizabeth. — Mary's last days were full of 
misery. Deserted by her husband, deprived of the advice of 
her best ally. Cardinal Pole, who had been removed by the 
pope for heresy,^ hated by her people, aware that her policy 
had failed, and that Elizabeth, who was to succeed her, would 
pursue a course different from her own, she nevertheless faced 
death with true Tudor courage. On November 17, 1558, the 
end came. Parliament, sitting at the time, immediately pro- 
claimed Elizabeth queen, and the people of London, with 
demonstrations of joy, welcomed her to the throne. But the 
real test of the situation lay not in the expressions of loyalty 
that greeted her accession, for Englishmen in their hatred of 
Northumberland had welcomed Mary with equal enthusiasm, 
but in the support which the people would give to her policy. 
Should Elizabeth make herself the head of a party only, as 
Mary had done, and fail to recognize the needs of the nation 
as a whole, she would become as unpopular as her sister had 
been. 

206. The Difficulties of Elizabeth's Position abroad. — Elizabeth 
came to the throne at a critical time, not only in the history of 
England, but of Europe also. The Reformation had thrown 
all the states of central and western Europe into great religious 
and political disorder. The great mediaeval church, hitherto 
the sole religious authority in western Europe, was threatened 
with dismemberment. Luther had started the revolt in Ger- 
many. Zwingle had stirred up the people living in the valley 
cantons of Switzerland. Calvin had written the Institutes of 



1 On the pope's ill treatment of Pole and the reasons therefor, see Gaird- 
ner, pp. 282-386. 




Elizabeth. 
From a photograph after a painting by F. Zucharo. 



[287] 



288 THE TUDOES AND THE REFORMATION. [1558 

Christianity, and had set up a model Christian government at 
Geneva, and in so doing had given to the Protestants a creed 
and an organization. The teachings of Calvin were to be of 
greater influence than those of either Luther or Zwingle. 
They vs^ere to penetrate western Germany, Denmark, the Neth- 
erlands, France, Scotland, England, and America, and were to 
inspire resistance to the authority of kings as well as of the 
pope. 

To meet the growing heresy, the Eoman church was com- 
pelled to rid itself of those evils and abuses which had in part 
led to the Protestant revolution. Such a reform had been 
begun a century before, but had moved very slowly. In 1545 
a council had been summoned, which, after many postpone- 
ments, finally completed its work in the Tyrolese city of Trent, 
in 1563. The Council of Trent gave new strength to the 
Roman church. In 1540 Ignatius Loyola founded the Society 
of Jesus, or the Jesuits, and created a body of zealous and 
devoted men who were to work for the recovery of the lands 
that had gone over to the Protestants. From 1560 to 1648 the 
Roman church made a determined effort to establish once 
more its authority and control in Europe.^ 

The pope, the Guises in France, and Philip II of Spain were 
the leaders of this mighty struggle. They labored for forty 
years to check the increase of the Protestants and to obtain 
political control of kingdoms that had fallen into Protestant 
hands. For forty years Elizabeth, who at the very outset of her 
reign disclosed her Protestant sympathies, was under assault, 
at one time or another, from Rome, France, Spain, Scotland, 
and Ireland. The pope excommunicated and deposed her ; 
the Jesuits sent disguised priests into the land ; Englishmen 
more loyal to the old faith than to their country formed con- 
spiracies against her; Catholic rulers, working from the 
Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany, plotted to gain 



1 The best history of the Reformation, in all its aspects, is Walker's The 
Reformation (1900). 



1558] ELIZABETH'S POSITION AT HOME. 289 

a foothold ill England and to bring the land under the author- 
ity of the pope. Thus England, as the leading Protestant 
kingdom, became the storm centre in the great religious 
struggle, and the success of the movement elsewhere depended 
in no small part on the policy that England adopted. 

207. Elizabeth's Position at Home. — To meet the great 
danger confronting her, Elizabeth needed the united support 
of all her people and a full treasury. But in 1558 she 
possessed neither. Wh^n she came to the throne, the revul- 
sion of feeling was so great on account of the outrages of 
Mary's government that the people were more willing to con- 
done errors and overlook personal weaknesses than they had 
been in 1553. She did not have their full support, however, 
and she had great difficulties to face. There was the uncer- 
tainty of her own title to the throne and the question 
of her legitimacy or illegitimacy, a matter of no little im- 
portance, for there were pretenders, of whom Mary Stuart 
was the most dangerous, with claims to the throne of Eng- 
land. Moreover, her treasury was not only empty, but was 
burdened with a debt of more than £200,000; and her own 
income, which remained fixed while the wealth of the kingdom 
was increasing and prices were rising, was insufficient, and 
caused her to seem, in later times, niggardly and parsimonious. 
Above all there was the question of her own marriage, a ques- 
tion which her sister Mary had decided so badly that to it may 
be traced the disasters of her reign. Should Elizabeth follow 
Mary's example and choose a Spaniard, or should she give her 
hand to a foreigner, all hope of a national and independent 
policy for England would be for the time being lost. 

On the religious side, the kingdom was divided by religious 
differences, and there was constant danger of a religious war 
such as was destined to break out later in France, the Nether- 
lands, and Germany. Such a conflict, which at this time 
would have been a terrible catastrophe for England, would 
surely take place should Elizabeth fanatically support either 
of the extreme parties, Eoman Catholic or Puritan. 



290 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1559 

In selecting William Cecil as her secretary of state, Eliza- 
beth declared her policy at the very beginning ; and in holding 
to him as her adviser till his death in 1598, in creating him 
Lord Burghley in 1571, and lord treasurer of England the 
next year, she showed her appreciation of and confidence in 
one of the greatest statesmen that England has ever had. 
Though Elizabeth was her own minister and Burghley her 
agent, yet to the latter must be attributed in large measure 
the successes of her reign ; for he advised the queen wisely in 
religious matters at home and piloted her with extraordinary 
skill through manifold complications abroad. 

208. The Religious Settlement. — Almost the first business of 
the reign was the settlement of the religious question. Eliza- 
beth at once disclosed her policy, by removing the most 
bigoted of Mary's bishops and appointing, as archbishop of 
Canterbury, Matthew Parker, known to be Protestant in his 
sympathies. A committee of which Parker was the chief was 
appointed to revise the Book of Common Prayer. On January 
25, 1559, parliament met, and as the government had recom- 
mended to the electors throughout England that Protestants 
be chosen, it soon became evident that the religious settlement 
was to take a Protestant form. Before the end of April, par- 
liament had passed two great acts, the Act of Supremacy and 
the Act of Uniformity, and the queen, supported by Cecil, 
had given the royal assent. 

The first of these acts^ declared that the English church 
was independent of all connection with Rome ; proclaimed the 
queen "supreme governor of the church," for Elizabeth decided 
not to take for the present the title of " Supreme Head," as- 
sumed by Henry VIIT, and demanded that all the clergy and 
every person holding political office should take an oath 
acknowledging the queen's supremacy or incur the penalty of 
losing his office. It threatened with severe punishment all 
persons writing in defence of the papal authority in Eng- 

1 Prothero, Selected Statutes and Other Constitutional Documents^ p. 1; 
Gee and Hardy, No. LXXIX; Adams and Stephens, No. 167. 



1559] THE RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT. 291 

Elizabeth by the grace of god of Englande Fraunce 
and Irland Quene defender of the faith etc. 
Elizabeth's Titlb.i 

land. Thus the first act concerned the government of the 
church. 

The second dealt with the forms of worship.^ It demanded 
that all Englishmen, ecclesiastical or lay, should use the Book 
of Common Prayer as drafted in 1552, with some slight altera- 
tions, and provided for heavy penalties in all cases of refusal. 
It ordered all people to attend church or chapel, and enacted 
that the ornaments of the church and vestments of the clergy 
should be those of the reign of Edward VI. 

The first of these acts was enforced from the beginning, and 
the oath of supremacy proved a stumbling-block. Of the 
bishops appointed by Mary, all but one resigned. The con- 
sciences of the lesser clergy were not so tender: only two 
hundred out of ninety-four hundred parish priests gave up 
their benefices. The second act was at first very leniently 
executed. Foreign Catholics and many English Catholics' 
contiDued to attend privately the old service, and were not 
punished. 

Before settling the third question, that of doctrine, Eliz- 
abeth preferred to wait, in order to watch the effect of the 
measures already taken. She was not a theologian, and 
beyond a love for ceremony, had no fixed religious preferences. 

1 The form " Etc." that followed the title of the kings and queens of Eng- 
land from Elizabeth's time to 1802 was used by Elizabeth because she and her 
ministers did not wish to commit themselves definitely to Henry VIII's posi- 
tion. The "Etc." meant that the title "Supreme Head" might be used if 
events so decided, but not otherwise. Maitland, in E. H. R., 1900, pp. 120-124. 

2 Prothero, p. 13 ; Gee and Hardy, No. LXXX ; Adams and Stephens, No, 
168. 



292 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1558 

As long as an outward conformity prevailed that would give to 
the English church a national character, she did not care what 
the people believed. But at the same time she and Cecil were 
wholly aware of the importance of moderation, and were un- 
willing to alienate further Philip of Spain or to stir up trouble 
at home by exciting debates on dogma and belief. What 
Elizabeth had done already was a compromise. Her church 
was a compromise church : for although its prayer book was a 
selection from ancient sources, and its doctrine and devotion 
were organically connected with the great ecclesiastical past, 
yet in rejecting. the authority of the pope and in drawing up 
the Thirty-nine Articles which defined the Anglican faith, it 
was distinctly Protestant. 

209. Cecil's Policy abroad. — Cecil's foreign policy, like his 
home policy, showed the minister's desire for peace and 
moderation. Until the era of the Tudors, England had been a 
small and thinly populated land ; it had been controlled com- 
mercially by foreign merchants ; and because it had held a 
position of only second rank as a kingdom, it had been de- 
pendent more or less on the friendship of the foreign powers. 
Henry VII and Henry VIII had begun the task of making 
England a power of first rank, and Elizabeth completed it. 
The old time enmity with France had been due, as far as the 
French were concerned, to the lands that English kings had 
had in France, and to the claims to the throne of France that 
these kings had set up. On England's part it had been due to 
the influence of France in Scotland, and to the danger that 
some French king might conquer the Netherlands, where 
lay the seat of English trade. Whoever in the past had 
controlled the cities of Flanders, whether the count of Flan- 
ders (to 1383), the duke of Burgundy (to 1477), or the emperors 
Maximilian and Charles V (to 1556), had been supported by 
England; and now that Philip II was lord of the Nether- 
lands, it was inevitable that the traditional policy should be 
maintained, and that England should seek for an alliance with 
Spain. Such alliance was as necessary to Philip as to Eliz- 



1659] MAINTENANCE OF PEACE. 293 

abeth, for England could control the waterway from Spain 
and Portugal to the Flemish and German ports. 

Cecil's policy was, therefore, to maintain under all circum- 
stances friendly relations with Spain, and to this policy he 
adhered to the end of his career. Furthermore, he tried to play 
off one foreign power against another, and to prevent by every 
means possible the isolation of England and the combination of 
Spain and France against her. In general he was successful. 
Philip, for his part, knew the value of the English alliance 
and had no desire to break it ; he was timid and slow, and en- 
dured a great deal from England in order to preserve friendly 
relations with her. But he was morbidly conscientious and 
honestly desired to make England a Eoman Catholic kingdom. 

Cecil fully understood Philip's position and shaped his own 
tactics accordingly. Whenever in his religious zeal Philip forgot 
his duties as a national king, — that is, forgot what he owed to 
the commerce, industry, and general welfare of his people, — 
and becoming the head of the Catholic league, plotted with the 
Catholics against Protestant England, Cecil did one of two 
things : either he drew near to France and aroused in Philip 
the fear of a political combination of England and France 
against Spain ; or he aided the Protestants in France, Ger- 
many, and the Netherlands and frightened Philip with the 
thought of a Protestant league that would oppose the Catholic 
league. Having by these means rendered Philip powerless, 
Cecil would then defy France by aiding the Protestants in 
Scotland, and so guard against a French invasion of Scotland, 
which for ten years was a real danger threatening Elizabeth. 
In the end he succeeded in driving the French from Scotland 
and won that kingdom to the Protestant cause. Thus Cecil's 
purpose was threefold: he was determined to maintain an 
alliance with Spain, to exclude the French from Scotland, and 
to prevent England from becoming involved in war either at 
home or abroad. 

210. Maintenance of Peace. — In his attempts to avoid war 
Cecil showed himself a master of diplomacy. In 1559 England 



294 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1559 

and Spain were at war with France; but the same year, at 
Cateau-Cambresis, France and Spain agreed to bring to an end 
the long struggle which had lasted off and on for forty years, 
and to this treaty England became a party. 

Thus the peace of Cateau-Cambresis carried with it some 
disadvantages and dangers for England. In the first place, as 
the weakest and most dependent of the three powers, she was 
treated with least consideration. For instance, in order to 
obtain a peace which Cecil greatly desired and the exhausted 
condition of the treasury made imperative, Elizabeth was com- 
pelled to give up all hope of recovering Calais and to consent 
that France should hold the city for eight years, at the end of 
which time it should either be restored or paid for with five 
hundred thousand crowns of gold. In the second place, it 
involved England in a possible danger, for according to rumor 
Philip and Henry had not only formed a political alliance, but 
had also agreed to join in extirpating heretics. 

The truth of this rumor has been denied ; but Cecil believed 
it, and seeing only the danger, bent all his efforts to separate 
Spain and France. He knew that Philip had not been troubled 
seriously by Elizabeth's adherence to Protestantism, and would 
do anything to prevent England from falling into the hands 
of the French ; but he grew alarmed when Philip, after 
Cateau-Cambresis, married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry II 
of France. In order to mollify Philip, he proposed a marriage 
between Queen Elizabeth and Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, 
Philip's cousin ; and at the same time, to arouse the jealousy 
of Philip, kept up the friendly relations with France. But 
the death of Henry II, on July 10, 1559, and the accession of 
Francis II and Mary Stuart changed the situation, for Francis 
and Mary at once assumed the title of king and queen, not only 
of France and Scotland, but of England also. Their claim to 
the throne of England was based on Elizabeth's illegitimacy ; 
for if Henry VIII's marriage with Anne Boleyn were unlawful, 
Mary Stuart, according to the assertion of the Catholics, though 
not under the terms of Henry VIII's will, was the rightful heir 



1560] THE CONDITION OF SCOTLAND. 295 

to the throne. Had Mary Stuart's title been recognized, Eng- 
land, Scotland, and France would have been united under a 
single crown. 

Cecil had to change his tactics. He knew that attempts to 
uphold Mary's title would be made by way of Scotland, and 
confident that Philip would not interfere, turned his attention, 
in the years 1559 and 1560, to the north, where he won his 
lirst great diplomatic victory. 

211. The Condition of Scotland.^ — Since the failure of Som- 
erset's schemes, ten years before, Scotland had remained under 
French influence, with Mary of Guise, the widow of James V, 
as regent. Scotland was a turbulent kingdom, inhabited, ex- 
cept in the cities of the south, by a half-civilized folk, and dis- 
turbed by the feuds of rough clan leaders and border barons. 
It was this discontent that, about the middle of the sixteenth 
century, made easy the introduction of the reform movement. 
Beaton, bishop of St. Andrews and leader of the old church 
party, fought the new ideas and caused about forty persons to 
be put to death. Not until 1559, when John Knox, one of the 
most determined of Calvin's followers, returned to Scotland 
from Germany, where he had been a leader of the Frankfort 
church, did the Scottish reformation break out in real earnest. 
Roused by the liery preaching of Knox, the Scottish people in 
a frenzy of excitement accepted the new teaching and began to 
tear down and destroy altars, churches, and other monuments 
of the old faith. Mary of Guise appealed to France for aid, 
while the Protestant lords of the congregation turned to 
Elizabeth. 

Cecil saw his opportunity. Knowing that Philip would not 
raise a hand to make the French queen, Mary Stuart, queen of 
England, he turned from the Archduke Ferdinand, and having 
proposed a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the earl of 
Arran, heir apparent to the Scottish throne, sent a fleet bearing 



1 Hume Brown's History of Scotland, Vol. II, pp. 45-116, is admirable for 
all that is dealt with in the following sections. 



296 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1560 

infantry and cavalry to besiege the French at Leith on the Forth. 
The effort proved entirely successful. The English were victori- 
ous. This event, coupled with the death of Mary of Guise in 
June, 1560, made possible the signing of the treaty of Edinburgh 
the next month. This treaty provided for the retirement of the 
French troops, the destruction of the fortresses of Leith and 
Dunbar, and the accession of Mary Stuart as queen of Scot- 
land, provided she abandon her claim to the English throne, 
acknowledge Elizabeth as rightful queen of England, grant a 
constitution to her subjects, and agree that no foreigner should 
hold office nor ecclesiastic control the revenues in Scotland. 

Had Mary accepted the terms of the treaty of Edinburgh, 
French influence in Scotland would have come to an end then 
and there. But she refused to accept them, and the treaty was 
signed only by the Scottish lords. The agreement was, however, 
a victory for Cecil and Elizabeth, and marked an important step 
toward the resumption of friendly relations between England 
and Scotland. The work of reform in Scotland was completed 
in 1561 by the establishment of the kirk, the adoption of the 
Protestant faith as defined by John Calvin, the dissolution of 
the monasteries, and the seizure of the monastic lands. Another 
bond now existed between the two countries, for thenceforth 
both England and Scotland were Protestant kingdoms. 

212. End of Mary Stuart's Reign as Queen of France: Cecil's 
New Policy. — In the autumn of 1560 Cecil's position was a 
strong one. His chief opponent, Robert Dudley, Earl of 
Leicester, whom many thought that the queen wished to 
marry, was temporarily in disgrace, suspected, though prob- 
ably unjustly, of murdering his wife. Amy Robsart. Leicester 
had taken the side of France, and for twenty years labored 
in vain to thwart Cecil and his policy. Toward the end of 
1560 the situation underwent another change. The death of 
Francis II in December gave great joy to the Protestants, be- 
cause it brought to an end Mary Stuart's reign as queen of 
France and consequently weakened the influence of Mary's rela- 
tives, the Guises, who were the leaders of the extreme Roman 



1561] MARY STUART IN SCOTLAND. 297 

Catholic party in France. It relieved the mind of Elizabeth by 
removing all danger of a French invasion by way of Scotland. 
At the same time it pleased Philip also, for he had no further 
need to dread a union of France and Scotland under a single 
head; and it did not discourage the English Catholics, who 
now expected Philip to support the claim of Mary Stuart to 
the throne of England, as a means of making England a 
Catholic state. 

Cecil foresaw the new difficulty and attacked Philip on his 
religious side by raising the spectre of a Protestant league. 
He looked with favor upon a proposal made by the Protestants 
that Elizabeth should marry the Protestant Eric XIV, King of 
Sweden. He invited Mary Stuart to return to Scotland and 
place herself in the hands of the Protestants there. He de- 
spatched the duke of Bedford to France to consult with the 
Huguenot leaders, and another emissary to the Protestant 
nobles of Scotland, thus making it appear that Elizabeth was 
about to become the leader of a Protestant league in Europe. At 
the same time he proceeded against the Catholics in England 
for attending mass, refused to admit into England a papal 
legate who was coming to invite Elizabeth to send deputies 
to the Council of Trent, and spread the report that the Catho- 
lics were engaged in a conspiracy against the queen. Cecil 
had chosen his time well. Philip was confronted with dis- 
affection in the Netherlands ; the Turks were advancing west- 
ward in the Mediterranean, and the Spanish treasury was 
empty. His efforts succeeded. Philip was frightened, and 
the Catholics in England, giving up hope of help from Spain, 
turned to Mary Stuart as their champion. 

213. Mary Stuart in Scotland. — Mary Stuart reached Scot- 
land on August 19, 1561. Her position was not an easy one. 
She had refused to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, and Elizabeth 
distrusted her. She had to face the implacable John Knox, to 
place herself under the control of the Scottish Protestants, and, 
in consequence, to see her priests insulted and her faith scorned. 
Yet for four years she governed with shrewdness and skill. 



298 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1561 

Her advisers were her lialf -brother, James Stuart, Earl of Moray, 
and William Maitland of Lethington, favorite secretary of Mary 
of Guise. She adopted a policy of reconciliation with the mod- 
erate Protestants, who desired to see her succeed Elizabeth and 
eventually unite the crowns of England and Scotland. At the 
same time she tried to be friendly to Elizabeth, seeking, but in 
vain, some recognition of herself as heir to the English throne ^ 




HoLYROOD Palace, Edinburgh. 
Residence of Maiy Queen of Scots, from 1561 to 1567. 

During these years, 1561-1565, when peace prevailed in Scot- 
land, important events were taking place abroad. Civil war had 
broken out in France because of the massacre by the Guises of 
a number of Huguenots at Yassy, March 1, 1562. The Dutch 
were gathering their forces for a revolt from Spain. Cecil con- 
tinued his policy of aiding the Protestants in France in order 
to destroy the power of the Catholic party and to isolate Mary in 
Scotland. He persuaded Elizabeth, rather against her will, to 

1 Compare Kendall, No. 53. 



1565] MARY STUART IN SCOTLAND. 299 

send money and troops to the Protestant leader Conde, receiv- 
ing in return the city of Havre. He continued the attack on 
the Catholics at home and disgraced the Spanish minister. 
Meanwhile parliament increased the penalties for refusing to 
take 'the oath of supremacy; and convocation, taking up at 
last the doctrinal question, reduced the Forty-two Articles of 
Edward VI to Thirty-nine, adopted the catechism and homilies, 
and so completed the establishment of the Anglican church 
(1563). 

At this point Cecil's policy received a check. At Amboise, 
in France, a treaty was arranged between Catherine de' Medici, 
the queen-mother, and Charles IX, the successor of Francis II, 
on one side, and the Huguenots on the other. Elizabeth seemed 
to be left in the lurch. Then Cecil, without breaking off rela- 
tions with France, assumed his old attitude of friendship 
for Spain. He dropped the proposed marriage with the Arch- 
duke Ferdinand, who had proved unsatisfactory, and suggested 
the Archduke Charles, his elder brother, as a suitor for Eliza- 
beth's hand. At the same time he allowed Catherine to pro- 
pose that Elizabeth should marry her son, Charles IX. During 
1565 Elizabeth dallied with both proposals, holding off France 
and Spain, and at the same time encouraging the earl of 
Leicester at home. 

Catherine de' Medici's compact with the Huguenots seems 
to have made Mary Queen of Scots believe that she could 
no longer count on the aid of France, and she now let it be 
known openly that she desired to unite the Catholics of Eu- 
rope and to claim the crown of England. She appealed to the 
Catholic nobles of England, to the pope, who promised her 
regular instalments of money, and to Philip, who tried to aid 
her. Cecil, who knew of all Mary's efforts, met them by send- 
ing aid to the Protestants of Scotland and encouraging the 
marriage of Elizabeth to Eric of Sweden, At the same time, 
by reviving the project of marriage with Archduke Ferdinand, 
Philip's cousin, he attempted to draw Philip away from France 
and a Catholic league. 



300 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1565 

214. Fall of Mary Stuart. — Mary now made her first mis- 
take. As a means toward the reconversion of her kingdom, 
she married, on July 29, 1565, her cousin Henry, Lord Darn- 
ley, son of the earl of Lennox and a claimant of the Scottish 
throne.' Darnley was a Catholic, by education at least, and 
an indolent, resentful youth. Owing to the fact that they 
were so closely related, Darnley and Mary were obliged to get 
a dispensation from the pope for their marriage. Curiously 
enough, this dispensation was not received until after the mar- 
riage ceremony had been actually performed. The marriage 
renewed the civil war in Scotland, for the Protestant lords, 
Moray, the Hamiltons, and the Argyles, saw in it the loss of 
their power. On the other hand, Mary's refusal to grant Darn- 
ley royal privileges led to a quarrel^between the royal pair and 
to the murder, in March, 1566, of Rizzio, Mary's secretary, of 
whom Darnley was jealous. The birth and baptism of a son, 
James VI of Scotland and I of England, December 17, 1566, 
proved to be the last and crowning triumph of Mary's career. 
Conspiracies were already forming against Darnley, and how 
far Mary was privy to them is the great mystery of her life. 
That she knew of the existence of a plot is proved ; but that 
she actually cooperated, either by encouragement or aid, has 
not been demonstrated. On February 9-10, 1567, Kirk O'Field, 
the house in which Darnley was staying in Edinburgh, was 
blown up, and Darnley was found dead in an adjoining field. 
The crime was committed by the earl of Bothwell, a rough 
border noble, with whom Mary was in love and whom she 

1 Henry VII King of England = Elizabeth of York 
James IV King of Scotland = Margaret = Earl of Angus 



I 
James V = Mary of Guise Margaret = Earl of Lennox 

Mary Stuart = Lord Darnley Charles, Earl 

I of Lennox 

T„rv,^c i VI of Scotland Lady Arabella 

James j j ^^ England Stuart 



§fw^ 




1568] ENGLAND IN 1568. 301 

afterward married. Proof of the queen's guilt rests upon 
the Casket Letters, averred to have been written to Bothwell 
by Mary just before the murder; but the most incriminating 
portions of these letters have been shown to be probable 
forgeries.^ 

Whether guilty or not, Mary from that day lost all influence 
in Scotland. After a defeat at Carberry Hill she was shut up 
in Lochleven Castle, whence escaping ^ she sought the protec- 
tion of Elizabeth. A commission appointed to investigate her 
guilt returned a verdict of not guilty ; but Mary remained in 
England virtually a prisoner for eighteen years, a constant 
source of embarrassment to the English queen and of danger 
to Elizabeth's government.^ 

215. England's Security and Prosperity in 1568. — Elizabeth's 
government had now passed the first great crisis in its history 
and for the moment at least was secure from outside invasion. 
The cause of Mary Stuart was discredited in Scotland and the 
queen herself was in the hands of Elizabeth in England. A 
rebellious Irish chief of Ulster, Shane O'Neil, who for seven- 
teen years had resisted the authority of the English govern- 
ment and had aided the Catholic cause, was at length ruined 
by his enemies, the O'Donnells, and assassinated in 1567 by 
the Scots of Antrim. Both Erance and Spain were too deeply 
involved in religious and civil war to think of interfering 
in England; for the Catholics and Huguenots had resumed 
their strife in 1567, and the Netherlands, on account of the 
policy of the Duke of Alba, who became regent of the coun- 
try the same year, were in full revolt against the authority 

1 Lang, Mystery of Mary Stuart, contains an elaborate examination of the 
whole question of Mary's guilt. But its conclusions are rather negative, 
though on the whole favorable to Mary. As Hume Brown points out, the 
question of the Casket Letters is of little importance to the student of history ; 
History of Scotland, II, p. 132, note. See his bibliography of the Mary Stuart 
question, pp. 457-459. Rait, in Mary Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 (Scottish His- 
tory from Contemporary Writers), has gathered the chief documents in the 
case in an excellent and usable little book. 

2 Kendall, No. 55. « Kendall, No. 56. 



302 THE TUDOHS AND THE HEt'ORMATlON. [1568 

of the Spanish king and were about to enter on their war for 
independence. France and Spain also were at odds with each 
other because Spanish settlers, in 1565, had destroyed a French 
colony established near St. Augustine in Florida. 

At home conditions were equally favorable. Cecil had 
said at the beginning of the reign that "war is the curse and 
peace the blessing of God upon a nation; a realm gaineth 
more by one year's peace than by ten years' war," and the first 
ten years of Elizabeth's reign had proved the truth of his 
saying. The prosperity of the English people was largely 
due to the growth of trade and commerce, which had suffered 
under Edward VI and Mary, owing to the debasement of the 
currency and the neglect of English shipping. Cecil had 
begun at once to " decry base money " and to provide for the 
reform of the currency. In 1560 a proclamation had been 
issued, calling in all the old coins, Spanish gold and silver 
pieces, the base shillings and sixpences, and promising to 
exchange them for new ones. Pure English coins had been 
issued, both gold and silver, and were gradually put into 
circulation. Merchants could tell once more what the value 
of the coins was, and were not afraid of further debase- 
ment. The amount of silver was increased as the wealth of 
the South American mines, which had been brought to Spain 
and spread through Europe by the Spanish wars, began to 
pour into England. Thus, money became better and more 
plentiful, prices rose evenly and gradually, and the merchants 
and traders, who were no longer hampered by a debased cur- 
rency, began to grow rich. Money was collected into the form 
of capital, and new undertakings were started in trade, indus- 
try, and commerce. 

At the same time Cecil encouraged artisans from other 
countries, Flemings driven from Flanders and Huguenots 
from France, to settle in England, and he made every effort 
to establish the particular handicrafts in which they ex- 
celled. He even settled a company of cloth workers in his 
own town of Stamford, and sought by every means in his 



1568] AGRICULTURE AND LABOR. 303 

power to advance England's position as a manufacturing 
land. 

The English government paid especial attention to shipping, 
and by several enactments gave trade advantages to English- 
men, inciting them to build ships and to do the carrying trade 
for themselves. Elizabeth confirmed the charters of the Mer- 
chant Adventurers, and in 1564 formally incorporated the com- 
pany.^ Thus England was able to injure Philij^ not only by 
arms and diplomacy, but also by measures affecting the trade 
of Elanders, which in the end practically ruined the city of 
Antwerp. In truth, we can understand Philip's attitude 
toward England from 1558 to 1588 better by studying trade 
and commerce than we can by studying diplomacy. 

Lastly, Cecil strengthened the queen's navy, got fighting 
men ready for sea service, built fortresses, and experimented 
with the making of brass cannon. Thus while encouraging the 
building of merchantmen and giving England a monopoly of 
shipping, he was laying the foundations of England's navy 
and was preparing the way for England's future greatness as 
mistress of the seas. 

216. Agriculture and Labor. — But the agricultural and land- 
owning classes did not prosper as much as did the merchants 
and manufacturers. The reign of Elizabeth marks the comple- 
tion of that great movement which we have seen taking place 
since the reign of Richard II — the breaking up of the mediaeval 
system of agriculture. Merchants and manufacturers were 
becoming more important than landholders and agricultural 
laborers, and were controlling the policy of the government.^ 

This advance of the moneyed class was important, in that the 
government was extending its powers and taking into its own 
hands a great many matters that had formerly been controlled 



1 Lingelbach, ** The Merchant Adventurers of England," Translations and 
Reprints, pp. xsxi, 229. 

2 See a contemporary account of the condition of England in Elizabeth's 
reign, by Harrison, in Holinshed's Chronicle (1577), extract in Hart's Contem* 
poraries, Vol. I, No. 44, and Kendall, No. 67. 



304 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION, [1563 

by the towns and the gilds, — such as the prices of commodities 
and wages, the hours and methods of labor. Only once before 
in such matters had the state made an important attempt to 
interfere. The Statute of Laborers had been passed by par- 
liament in 1351, only because there had existed no agricultural 
gild to do for the laborers what the towns and the craft gilds 
were doing for the artisans. But the decay of the towns and 
the gilds had thrown trade regulation into confusion, while en- 
closures, decay of villeinage, and other causes already noted 
had increased poverty and vagabondage among the agricultural 
classes. Attempts had been made to check these evils by 
preventing further enclosures, by encouraging corn raising 
instead of sheep raising, and by regulating wages. But with 
the rise of prices^ in Elizabeth's reign poverty increased, and 
the old means of relieving the poor no longer existed ; for the 
monasteries, chantries, and other semi-religious foundations 
that had looked after the poor in preceding centuries had been 
swept away by Henry YIII and Edward VI. 

Among the earliest measures to be considered by Elizabeth's 
parliament, therefore, were those regulating labor and prices 
and relieving the poor. In 1563 two acts were passed, — one 
concerning relief of the poor, and another, commonly called 
the Statute of Apprentices, concerning "artificers, laborers, 
servants of husbandry, and apprentices." ^ The first required 
that every parish should contribute to the support of its own 
poor; the second regulated labor, wages, and apprenticeship, 
and placed the responsibility of controlling wages upon the 
justices of the peace, those country gentlemen who had been 
for some time becoming more and more important in the 
counties on account of their judicial authority, and who were 
now given new prominence as administrators of the poor 
law and the statute of apprentices.® 

1 During Elizabeth's reign prices rose sixty per cent, wages only thirty. 
During the entire sixteenth century the rise in prices was more than double 
that of wages. 

2 Prothero, pp. 41, 45. 8 Compare Adams and Stephens, No. 177. 



1568] ENGLAND'S STRUGGLE WITH CATHOLICISM. 305 

Thus in the period from 1558 to 1568 England had grown 
strong in wealth, industry, shipping, and commerce. The gov- 
ernment, prudent and patriotic, was holding the balance of power 
abroad, because by aiding the Dutch or the Huguenots, it could 
embarrass Spain or France; while at home it was becoming 
more national, assuming new duties and exercising new powers, 
regulating and controlling labor and wages, providing for the 



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A fine old manor-house seven miles southeast of Liverpool. 



poor, punishing rogues and vagabonds, and either itself or 
through its officials, doing the work that had been performed 
in the Middle Ages by the local factors, — towns, gilds, and 
manorial lords. A transformed and modern England was 
gradually appearing. 

217. England's Struggle with Catholicism. — But England 
had still to face a crisis greater even than that through which 
she had already passed. After 1568 the Koman Catholic 
church, which had begun to regain ground in Europe by win- 



306 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1568 

ning back converts in Spain, Italy, France, and southern Ger- 
many, made an attack on England, partly to recover that land 
for the old faith, and partly to weaken the Protestant cause, of 
which England was the main support. 

The instrument of Roman Catholicism in England was Mary 
Stuart, who from this time forward became the centre of plot 
after plot against Elizabeth and the Protestants. Mary Stuart 
had finally given up all expectation of aid from France, 
for Catherine was making friendly advances to England, 
and henceforth depended on the pope, Philip, and the duke of 
Alba abroad and on the Catholic lords at home. So numerous 
were her negotiations with these Catholic leaders, largely 
carried on through the Spanish ministers in England, De Spes 
and afterward Mendoza, that peace with Spain became more 
and more difficult to maintain, and the years 1568 to 1571 were 
marked by a series of acts and counter-acts, which were but 
warnings of the great religious struggle to come. For in- 
stance, in 1568, Cecil seized a large sum of money, which 
Philip had borrowed of Genoese bankers and which the latter 
had sought to convey at their own risk to Flanders. Philip 
retaliated by confiscating all English property in the Nether- 
lands. Then Cecil in his turn confiscated all Spanish prop- 
erty in England, thereby causing consternation and disaster 
in Spain. This act injured Spain's commerce, destroyed her 
credit, and weakened the resources not only of Philip at home, 
but also of Alba in the Netherlands. 

Next followed secret efforts of the Continental and English 
Catholics to overthrow Cecil, restore the old nobility, place 
Mary Stuart on the throne, and make Roman Catholicism the 
religion of England. Pius Y established seminaries on the 
Continent at Douai and St. Omer in the Netherlands as training 
schools for the education of English priests. He despatched 
money and agents to encourage the Catholic party in England, 
while the duke of Alba not only sent money to England and 
Scotland, but also encouraged a new Irish revolt under the Fitz- 
geralds, or Geraldines. Though Cecil had imprisoned De Spes 



1571] THE RIDOLFI PLOT. 30T 

for his insolence, Mary Stuart continued to send letters to the 
pope, Philip, and the duke of Alba, begging for aid, and promis- 
ing cooperation in any conspiracy that might be formed to 
dethrone Elizabeth. A conspiracy was actually formed in 1569. 
Mary was to marry the duke of Norfolk, the leading Catholic 
noble in England, and a rising, beginning in the north, was to 
follow. But Cecil knew all the details of the scheme. Eliza- 
beth had Norfolk arrested and shut up in the Tower, and then 
summoned to her the earls of Northumberland and Westmore- 
land, who, as Cecil knew, had promised to arouse the region 
of the north and capture it for Catholicism, release Mary, 
restore the Catholic faith, and return the Spanish property 
confiscated by Cecil. The earls refused to obey the queen's 
summons, and without waiting for the troops that Alba had 
promised to send, rose in revolt. This movement, the only 
important armed revolt against Elizabeth in England, was 
quelled before the end of the year, and the defeated earls fled 
to Scotland, where they joined the Scottish Catholics in plots 
against the queen. 

218. The Ridolfi Plot. — Though the Catholic cause was not 
making progress in England, it was gaining elsewhere, and 
Elizabeth, in 1570, had good reason to fear a Spanish invasion 
of England. The Koman Catholic party seemed to be winning 
in the religious wars in France and the Netherlands. In 
England the conspirators were in no- wise discouraged, and the 
Italian banker, Eidolfi, was passing back and forth between 
England and Italy weaving plots.^ On Eebruary 25, Pius V, 
in order to strengthen the Catholic cause in England, excom- 
municated Elizabeth and absolved all Englishmen from their 
oaths of allegiance. In Scotland the regent Moray had been 
murdered in Linlithgow, and the friends of Mary, assisted by 
the Northumberland earls, were ready to cross the border. 

In the presence of this activity, Cecil not only sent aid to the 



1 For Ridolfi, see Einstein, The Italian Benaissance in England, pp. 273, 
382-383* 



308 THE TUDORS AND THE REFOEMATION. [1571 

Huguenots in La Roclielle and the Dutch, in the Netherlands, 
and allowed English privateers to sweep the Spanish from the 
English Channel, but also promoted friendly relation with 
France and advocated a marriage between Elizabeth and the 
duke of Anjou, younger brother of Charles IX. (At Blois, 
April 29, 1572.) A peace made at St. Germain in August, 1570, 
between Catherine de' Medici and the Huguenots, made this 
alliance possible by bringing the anti-Spanish party into con- 
trol in France. 

Cecil's diplomacy had the desired effect. The assistance 
given the Huguenots, the alliance with France, and the pro- 
posal to make a French prince king-cojisort of England ter- 
rified Philip, and drove the English Catholics to despair of 
further aid from him. At once, Cecil, now Lord Burghley, was 
ready to unfold the details of a plot, called the Ridolfi plot, 
which he had long been following and in which he suspected 
Mary Stuart and the duke of Norfolk were implicated. From 
confessions of conspirators he had learned that the pope, 
Philip, and the Catholic party in France were pledged to a vast 
crusade against England in order to crush Protestantism, de- 
stroy Elizabeth, assassinate himself, and raise Mary Stuart to 
the throne. Without hesitation he caused De Spes to be ban- 
ished from England and the duke of Norfolk to be arrested. 
The next year (1572) the latter was tried by his peers,^ found 
guilty, and executed, and Mary Stuart was saved from the 
same fate only because Elizabeth was unwilling to injure a 
crowned head. Then, as a counter-stroke to the Spanish plot, 
Cecil aided the Dutch and Flemish Beggars in their siege of 
Brill (1572), which began the revolt of the Netherlands against 
the authority of Spain. 

219. Loyalty of Parliament during the Struggle. — Whenever 
Elizabeth was confronted by a great crisis like this, she was 
fond of summoning parliament, in order to show to other 
powers how well her acts were upheld by the English nation. 
In 1571 she called her third parliament. This body, like its 

" — • — ^ — • — — — — — — V ' 

1 Prothero, p. 138. 



1571] LOYALTY OF PARLIAMENT TO ELIZABETH. 309 

predecessors, was composed mainly of Protestants, partly 
because the queen had requested that Protestants be elected, 
partly because honest Roman Catholics, unable conscientiously 
to take the oath of supremacy, could not sit as members. 

Parliament passed certain acts that were intended as a 
reply to the great Catholic conspiracy. The first of these 
made it high treason to compass the queen's life, to claim the 
throne during the lifetime of the queen, or even to support 
such a claim ; * a second made it high treason for any one to 
bring into England, or to put into use there, any decree or bull 
of the pope ; ^ while a third sanctioned the Thirty-nine Articles 
already adopted by convocation as containing the doctrine of 
the Anglican church.^ The fourth parliament, which met in 
1572, imposed the penalty of death upon all who should 
attempt to seize or destroy any of the queen's fortresses or 
castles, or should conspire to set at liberty any one imprisoned 
for treason."* 

Although these measures show that Elizabeth's parliaments 
were devoted to her cause and j)olicy, yet it must be remem- 
bered that they did not represent the whole of England. They 
were composed in the main of Protestants from the south, and 
included no members either from the north, where, as in the 
days of the Pilgrimage of Grace, lay the chief strength of 
Catholicism, or from Ireland, where at this time the Geral- 
dines were in full revolt, fighting for Ireland and the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

It should be noticed, furthermore, that though not yet in the 
modern sense a representative body, parliament was gradu- 
ally becoming more modern as regards the class of men who 
sat in it, the questions it discussed, and the powers it exercised. 
Instead of country squires and others representing the agri- 
cultural life of the country, merchants, traders, and lawyers 

1 Prothero, p. 57. 

2 Prothero, pp. 60-63; Adams and Stephens, No. 174. 

3 Prothero, p. 64; Gee and Hardy, No. LXXXIII. 
* Prothero, p. 65. 



310 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1572 

were becoming members. Though party organization was as 
yet unknown, the members were becoming more outspoken in 
their support of, or opposition to, governmental measures, and 
were gradually establishing certain parliamentary rights, such 
as freedom from arrest, freedom of speech, and freedom of 
access to the sovereign.^ No measure proposed by the queen 
could become law without their consent, and they controlled 
all appropriations of money. Yet, on the other hand, the 
powers of the queen were very great. She named the speaker, 
appointed new peers, created new boroughs, and, by means of 
the right of initiative, exercised control of the bills to be 
brought before parliament.^ Slie was also supreme executive, 
and through the Privy Council, the ministers, the Star Cham- 
ber at Westminster, the Councils of the North and of Wales, 
and some other bodies, controlled the actual administration of 
the government. 

220. Period of Shifting Diplomacy in Foreign Relations (1572- 
1580). — The revolt .of the northern nobles and the Eidolfi 
plot had induced Elizabeth to seek an alliance with France. 
But in 1572 an event took place in that country that nearly 
severed these friendly relations. On St. Bartholomew's Day, 
Catherine de' Medici, alarmed at the influence obtained by the 
anti-Spanish party in France over the young king, Charles IX, 
took up the cause of the Catholic party and caused thou- 
sands of Huguenots to be massacred in Paris and the prov- 
inces. But Elizabeth made no change in her policy. Assured 
by Catherine that this massacre did not mean the return of the 



1 On parliamentary privileges at this time, see Prothero's masterly preface, 
pp. Ixxxviii-xcviii. Documents in his work may he found as follows : concern- 
ing freedom from arrest, pp. 126-132; freedom of speech, pp. 109. Ill, 117, 118- 
126; access to the sovereign through the speaker, pp. 117, 120, 124, 125. 

2 Measures were prepared by the crown, that is, by the ministers. The 
power of the government lay in simple prohibition (Prothero, pp. 115, 125, 
126), use of force (p. 119), displeasure of queen (p. 120), or veto (p. 125). 
When once laws were made the queen could neutralize their force either 
by issue of special proclamations (pp. 168, 169) or by dispensing with them 
altogether (pp. Ill, 113, 179). 



THE 
NETHERLANDS 

in the time of 
ELIZABETH 

SCALE OF MILES 



.-o^" 



^Leeuw/rden. 




East 4 ° from 



1580] ELIZABETH'S SHIFTING DIPLOMACY. 311 

Guises and Catholics to power, she adhered to the French 
alliance, and when the duke of Anjou refused to marry her, 
accepted as a suitor, though she had little intention of marrying 
him, the youngest brother of the king, the duke of Alen^on. 
This coquetting with France had a double consequence: by 
exasperating Catherine de' Medici, who did not like to be 
played with, it almost caused a breach between the two coun- 
tries ; and it offended the Puritans at home, one of whom, 
Stubbs, wrote a famous book. The Discovery of a Gaping GuljjJi, 
— the French marriage, — for which he suffered the loss of 
his right hand. 

In 1574 the duke of Anjou became king of France as 
Henry III, and, hating Protestantism, revived the old hostile 
policy against England. For the moment Elizabeth considered 
Burghley's plan of friendship with Spain ; but this plan was 
rendered impossible by the Spanish Fury in Antwerp in 1576, 
when the unpaid and mutinous Spanish soldiers, by devastating 
and ruining the fairest cities of Flanders, drove the Flemish 
nobles over to the side of William of Orange and the Dutch. 
Elizabeth, aroused against Spain by this act, and desiring, as 
English sovereigns had always desired, to keep on good terms 
with those who seemed likely to control Flanders, sent four 
hundred thousand crowns to aid the Flemish. Philip retali- 
ated by sending aid to Desmond in Ireland, by encouraging the 
Catholics in England, by despatching Eequesens and after- 
ward Parma, two able and conciliatory regents, to win back 
Flanders, and by fitting out a fleet in 1580, apparently for the 
conquest of England. 

Thus England had both France and Spain against her. It 
began to look as if, in her fickleness, Elizabeth, who alone was 
responsible for the policy of this period, had succeeded in in- 
juring her popularity at home and in endangering her relations 
abroad to such an extent as to isolate England, a contingency 
that Burghley for twenty years had sought strenuously to avoid. 

221. Measures against the Jesuits : Drake and Spain. — Events 
themselves were rapidly bringing' matters to a crisis. Despite 



312 



THE rUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 



[1580 



Elizabeth's fickleness and Burghley's desire to avoid war, 
England was gradually assuming a position of open hostility 
toward Spain and the Catholic party. 

The labors of the Jesuits and Seminarians were arousing the 
anger of loyal Englishmen, and were leading to reprisals on 
the part of the government. From Rome, Rheims, Douai, and 




Sir Francis Drake. 

St. Omer priests had gone to England to work for the conver- 
sion of the land. Led by Father Allen, they had become active 
and dangerous agents of Catholicism, and had already suc- 
ceeded in increasing the number of converts and infusing new 
life into the Roman Catholic party in England. Already had 



1581J MEASURES AGAINST THE JESUITS. 313 

Esme Stuart, Count D'Aubigny, gone to Scotland, and Sanders, 
an English refugee priest, to Ireland, to rouse these countries 
against England. In 1581 certain Jesuits — Creighton, Parsons, 
and Holt — had entered England, while Campion and others, 
refraining from meddling with political matters, were engaged 
in the spiritual work of conversion. But conversion to Roman 
Catholicism involved necessarily the denial of the queen's 
supremacy. Therefore parliament passed laws declaring that 
any one who drew away any of the queen's subjects "to the 
Romish religion " should be adjudged a traitor.^ Having acted 
in defiance of these laws. Campion and two others were tortured 
and executed in December, 1581. During the following years 
harsh measures were taken against all Eoman Catholics, notably 
in 1585, when all Jesuits, seminary priests, and other priests 
were ordered to leave England, or, in case of refusal, to be 
declared guilty of high treason and to suffer death.^ These 
acts were the work, not of Burghley, but of Walsingham, 
Knollys, and other Puritans in the council, who, in opposition 
to Burghley, were determined to bring on war with Spain. 

The actions of the English privateers abroad, commanded by 
Drake and Hawkins, were aiding the war party at home. A 
series of expeditions since 1568 had culminated in the famous 
voyage of Drake in the Pelican or Golden Hind (1577-1580). 
The Pelican had sailed " into the South Sea, and thence about 
the whole globe of the earth," robbing Spanish vessels and 
seizing an incalculable amount of Spanish treasure. Of this 
treasure Elizabeth received her share.^ 

222. Plots and Counterplots: Execution of Mary Stuart, — 
The activities of the seminary priests and the Catholic con- 
spirators, on one side, and the raids of Hawkins and Drake, 
on the other, were making it evident that Elizabeth must 
stop her shifting diplomacy and come out definitely on one 
side or the other. 



1 Prothero, p. 74. « Lee, No. 145. 

2 Prothero, p. 83; Gee and Hardy, No. LXXXV. 



314 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1582 

A Spanish and Jesuit plot had been formed in Scotland for 
the purpose of securing that government for Eoman Catholi- 
cism, and D'Aubigny, who was the centre of the plot, was 
supported by Philip and the Guises. But the Protestant 
nobles of Scotland seized the person of King James VI in 
the raid of Euthven, banished D'Aubigny, and checked all 
danger from that quarter (August, 1582). ^ In the same year 
an attempt was made to kill William of Orange, stadtholder 
of the Dutch republic, but without success. In the council, 
Walsingham was tracing with marvellous ingenuity the plots 
formed against Elizabeth, and was using his information 
for the purpose of bringing about war with Spain. Of him 
it was said that he heard in England what was whispered 
in Eome. 

And, finally, in 1584, the death of the duke of Alengon, the 
last of the suitors whom Elizabeth had considered seriously, 
removed the need of an alliance with France. The heir to the 
French throne was Henry of Navarre, leader of the Huguenots, 
and to prevent, if possible, his accession to the throne was now 
the great object of the Guises and the Catholic party, who for 
that purpose organized the Catholic league. Now that bitter 
civil war was about to break out in France, Elizabeth knew 
that the French would be useless as allies and harmless as foes. 

Thus with 1584 the war party had obtained the upper hand 
in Elizabeth's council and had determined to meet the Catholic 
intrigues by forming a Protestant league. In 1584, when a 
plot to assassinate Elizabeth was discovered, an association of 
loyal Englishmen was formed for the purpose of revenging 
" to the uttermost all malicious actions and attempts " against 
the queen. This association was legalized by parliament in 
1585.2 In the same year a new act ^ was passed against the 
Jesuits and the seminarians, and there is little doubt that had 



1 For Scottish history during this period, see Hume Brown, History of Scot' 
land, Vol. IT, pp. 127-230. On the Riithven raid, pp. 187-193. 

« Prothero, p. 80; especially p. 83, § IV. « Prothero, p. 83. 



I 



1687] EXECUTION OF MARY STUART. 315 

not the queen and Burghley been inclined to leniency, the 
measures taken would have been much more severe. 

Already Walsingham had in his possession the details of the 
greatest of the plots against the queen. After 1584 Mendoza 
had been dismissed and Mary placed under the guardianship 
of the rigid Puritan, Sir Amyas Paulet, at Tutbury, where 
she continued her treasonable activity. Through her letters 
she betrayed the existence of well-formed plans laid by Philip 
for the conquest of England. Philip had been especially 
angered by a new expedition led by Drake to the Spanish 
West Indies in 1585, by the despatch of five thousand English- 
men to Holland to aid the Dutch, and by Leicester's assumption 
of the title of governor-general of the Dutch Republic after 
the death of William of Orange, who had been murdered by a 
Eoman Catholic fanatic in 1584. He now determined on an 
invasion of England. In June, 1586, Mary disinherited her 
son James in favor of Philip, whose plans now became more 
definite. To his desire to conquer England for the sake of 
the Catholic cause, was added a further wish to win the new 
inheritance for himself and his family. 

Before the great expedition could be undertaken, spies and 
traitors had betrayed to Walsingham the plot that Babington, 
the priest Ballard, and Mendoza, in Paris, had been gradually 
working out against Elizabeth. In August, 1586, Babington 
and five others were arrested and on ample evidence were exe- 
cuted a month later. With all the proofs in his hands Wal- 
singham then charged Mary Stuart with conspiracy. Under the 
act of 1585 she was brought to trial before a special commission 
sitting in the great hall of Fotheringay Castle, and during ten 
days conducted her defence with consummate ability.^ On 
October 25 she was condemned to death. Elizabeth was deter- 
mined that Mary should die, but was unwilling to bear the 
blame of having executed a sovereign. After long delay she 
signed the warrant, and on February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was 

1 Henderson, Side Lights, Group II, pp. 9-18 ; Prothero, p\>. 140-143. 



316 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1587 

beheaded.^ Thereupon Elizabeth became angry, asserting that 
she had wished to pardon the Scottish queen ; and Davison, the 
secretary, who had carried out the sentence, was deprived of his 
office, thrown into the Tower, and compelled to pay a fine that 
ruined him. His treatment by Elizabeth, Burghley, and the 
council is not a pleasant episode in English history. 

223. The Spanish Armada. — The death of Mary gave Philip 
an immediate claim to the English throne. He did not want 
that throne for himself, but wished to establish his favorite 
daughter, Isabella, as queen of England ; and with this end in 
view he hurried forward the preparations for the great Armada, 
which had been going on in dilatory fashion for two years. 
In England, as well as in Spain, the execution of Mary Queen 
of Scots had caused a great shock. Conspirators were discour- 
aged. Moderate Catholics, who had been ready to support the 
cause of Mary Stuart as long as she lived, would not transfer 
their allegiance to Philip, because in so doing they would have 
been disloyal to their nationality. They now stood shoulder to 
shoulder with the Protestants in resisting Philip's aggression. 
Protestants rejoiced in the death of the Catholic queen and 
showed their devotion to England and Elizabeth in demon- 
strations of loyalty. The foreign powers, willing perhaps to 
aid Philip in conquering England for the Catholics, would not 
raise a finger to aid him in increasing the territory and power 
of Spain. The pope, Sixtus Y, though anxious to bring 
England back into the fold of the church, strongly opposed 
Philip's proposal to seize the English throne for Isabella. The 
great duel was to be between mediaeval, ecclesiastical, auto- 
cratic Spain on one side, and young, national, Protestant 
England on the other. All other powers held aloof. Prep- 
arations for the great expedition, which had been hastened 
by the death of Mary Stuart, were delayed by Drake's attack 
on Cadiz in the spring of 1587, whereby damage to the 
extent of a million ducats was inflicted on Spain. Philip was 

1 Kendall, No. 68. 



1588] THE SPANISH ARMADA. 317 

enraged at Drake's insolence, and even Burghley, who was 
still struggling to preserve the peace, was angry. But the 
English people were delighted at this " singeing of the Span- 
ish king's beard" and made Drake a national hero. 

At last, in the summer of 1588, the Armada started for Eng- 
land, reaching the Channel in July. It presented an imposing 
array of one hundred and thirty-two vessels, but was in fact 
ponderous and unwieldy, badly equipped and provisioned, and 
commanded by an incompetent admiral, the duke of Medina 
Sidonia.^ Confronting it were the English ships, light in ton- 
nage and few in number, but manned by experienced crews 
and led by Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and others, the heroes 
of a hundred sea-fights. The plan of the Armada was to sail 
to Elanders, take on board six thousand of Parma's men, 
and land them on the English or the Scottish coast. But the 
great fleet never reached Flanders. Beset on every side by 
the English vessels during its voyage up the Channel, it was 
finally utterly defeated in a hard fight off Gravelines and com- 
pelled to take flight northward through the North Sea. Still 
further harassed by the storms of the north coast, it suffered 
final disaster in rounding Scotland and Ireland, and only fifty- 
three vessels ever again reached Spain. 

224. After the Armada: Significance of the Victory. — The 
defeat of the Armada did not by any means destroy the 
power of Spain, and for a decade Englishmen constantly 
feared a renewal of the attack. A counter expedition in 
1589 was led by Drake and Essex against Spain, for the pur- 
pose of aiding Don Antonio, claimant to the throne of 
Portugal, which had been annexed by Philip to Spain in 
1580. But the expedition failed. During the years that 
followed, while Englishmen watched for a second armada and 
suspected Jesuit plots, English vessels continued to prey on 
Spanish fleets and to bring home rich prizes. In 1596 their 
suspicions were nearly realized. An armada, planned to land 

1 Henderson, Side Lights^ Group HI, pp. 18-26; Kendall, No. 59. 



318 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1597 

a strong Spanish army on the coast of Ireland for the aid of 
Tyrone, was destroyed by storms, October 28, off Cape Finis- 
terre. Then Lord Howard, Essex, and Ealegh sailed boldly 
into the harbor of Cadiz, and after destroying the shipping, 
captured and sacked the city. Another similar expedition in 
1597 failed. 

These acts of retaliation marked the close of the conflict. 
All were weary of the struggle and desired that it should end. 
In France and England the great religious war was over. In 
the former, Roman Catholicism had won; in the latter, Protes- 
tantism. France had emerged from her period of civil war a 
united Catholic state, Henry IV had renounced Protestantism 
in 1593, had made his peace with the Huguenots in 1598 by 
granting religious toleration in his edict issued from TS" antes, 
and in the same year had made j)eace with Philip in the treaty 
of Vervins. England, rich and prosperous, had become a 
national and Protestant kingdom, no longer in the leading 
strings of France and Spain, but independent and self-reliant, 
ready for the great future that was before her. Philip lay 
dying in the mountains of Guadarrama,^ knowing that Eng- 
land was lost to Catholicism, and that his own country was 
exhausted. In the same year Burghley died in London. With 
the exception of the queen, he was the greatest of those who 
had won for England her victory. Events had often thwarted 
his policy, but in the main it had prevailed. That it was a 
useful policy was shown later when Burghley's son and succes- 
sor, Eobert Cecil, in order to prevent Flanders from falling 
into the hands of France, united England and Spain in an 
alliance which lasted for twenty-five years. 

225. Rise of the Puritans. — England had become a Protes- 
tant kingdom and her church a Protestant church ; yet among 
the Protestants were those who were not satisfied with Eliza- 
beth's moderation, and wished that "all, even the slightest 
vestiges of popery might be removed" from the church and 



1 Kendall, No. 60. 



1559] ELIZABETH AND THE PURITANS. 819 

from the mind. These people, at first called " Evangelics," 
had been obliged to flee from England during Mary's reign and 
to take refuge in certain cities of Germany, — Geneva, Zurich, 
Strasbourg, Frankfort, and Basel. There they had established 
churches, and during the years 1554-1558 had fought out 
among themselves many of the issues afterward to be raised 
in England. When in 1554 they had submitted to Calvin the 
question as to whether or not the prayer book of Edward VI 
should be adopted, the latter decided against it, on the ground 
that the prayer book lacked the purity that was desirable. 
This decision gave the victory to the more extreme or Calvin- 
istic party among them and suggested the name, Puritan, 
which was afterward given to this party in England. 

In 1555 a new order for the church in Geneva was drawn up, 
which omitted as pernicious the old prayers, hymns, and saints' 
days. It produced much quarrelling between the Anglicans 
and Calvinists on the Continent, but was finally adopted both at 
Geneva and Frankfort. A new translation of the Bible was 
printed — the Genevan or "Breeches" Bible, which omitted 
the Apocrypha, struck out of the calendar saints' names and 
days, and in the explanatory notes defended the Puritan doc- 
trines. The new Bible was smaller in size than had been the 
older versions, contained a text which for the first time was 
divided into verses, and was printed in Roman instead of 
black letter type. With Calvin's Institutes and Foxe's Book of 
Martyrs it became the guide and consoler of the Puritans dur- 
ing the later days of trouble. Thus in Geneva and Frankfort, 
before Elizabeth's accession, a new religious party had come 
into being, which not only rejected the entire tradition of the 
old Catholic church, but was opposed to any compromise with 
the old forms and doctrines. 

226. Elizabeth and the Puritans : the Question of Vestments. 
— When these reformers returned to England, they hoped that 
Elizabeth and her ministers would adopt the Calvinism of the 
Continent. They were not so much opposed to the doctrines 
of the Forty-two (afterward Thirty-nine) Articles as to the 



320 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1559 

retention in the service of "certain vestments and ceremonies 
which seemed to savor of the Eoman liturgy.'' They wished 
to get rid of the cap and surplice, of the use of the sign of the 
cross, of the ring in marriage, of the practice of kneeling at 
the reception of the sacrament. But Elizabeth would consider 
none of these changes, and in her decision was supported by 
the majority of the nation, which loved the old Catholic 
forms. The matter was settled by the queen's injunctions 
of 1559^ and by the Act of Uniformity of the same year, 
which ordered that the vestments and rites should be those of 
Edward VI's time.^ In the convocation of 1563 the reformers 
made a formal statement of their demands, which was re- 
jected.^ Two years later the queen met the issue squarely 
in Parker's "Advertisements" of 1565, which ordained that 
every parish minister should wear a surplice, and that the 
celebrant in collegiate and cathedral churches should wear a 
cope."* The clergy still refused, however, to observe these 
regulations, and it was not until Whitgift became archbishop 
that serious attempts were made to compel them to do so. 

227. Division among the Reformers : Presbyterians and Inde- 
pendents. — Thus far the reformers had been concerned chiefly 
with questions of worship ; they had not objected to the state 
control of the church. But the controversy over vestments 
had led certain among them to ask whether the organization of 
the Anglican church ought not to be changed also. Of these, 
Thomas Cartwright, professor of divinity at Cambridge, was 
the leader. In The Book of Discipline, published in 1580, he 
presented his views.^ He agreed with the Anglicans in desir- 
ing the church to be national, but he wished it to be separated 
entirely from state control. He would grant to the state only 



iFor "Tables in the Church," Gee and Hardy, pp. 428, 439; Prothero, 
pp. 188, 190, especially § XXX. 

2 Act of Uniformity, § XHI, Gee and Hardy, p. 466; Prothero, p. 20. 

« Prothero, p. 191 ; Lee, No. 137. 

4 Gee and Hardy, No. LXXXI; Prothero, p. 191. 

6 Prothero, pp. 248-249. 



1580] PRESBYTERIANS AND INDEPENDENTS. 821 

the right to aid the church in suppressing heresy and enforcing 
uniformity. He wanted a complete organization for the church, 
but one differing from that of the Anglican. Instead of con- 
vocation he wanted a national synod, a provincial synod, and 
classes or local assemblies, For bishops and priests he would 
substitute presbyters and elders, and would have every minis- 
ter selected by the congregation and dependent upon it, instead 
of being appointed and paid by the state.^ He agreed with the 
Anglicans in believing that every baj)tized person, whether 
or not he had remained faithful to his vows, should be a mem- 
ber of the church. Those supporting these views came to be 
known as Presbyterians, and in Northampton and Warwick 
they set up Presbyterian churches which adopted the Genevan 
Book of Common Prayer instead of that of Edward VI. Thus 
the Presbyterians differed from the Anglicans in rejecting 
convocation, bishops, the Book of Common Prayer, the method 
of appointing and paying ministers, and finally the authority 
of the state and the supremacy of the queen. 

More radical than the Presbyterians were those afterward 
known as Independents, who rejected not only bishops and a 
state church, but also presbyters, synods, and a national church. 
They desired that only those who were faithful Christians 
should constitute a church, and that each church so constituted 
should be complete in itself, self-governing, and independent 
of all higher control, whether of state, convocation, or synod. 
Men holding this view of church organization had been in 
Frankfort in 1558, and a church thus constituted had been set 
up in London in 1567. But the man who gave definite form to 
these views was Robert Browne, who declared that " True 
Christians are united into a companie or number of believers, 
who by willing covenant made with their God place them- 
selves under the government of God and Christ." ^ The 
Independents were not willing, as were the Puritans, to remain 
within the Anglican church, hoping for a purification of its 

1 Lee, No. 135. * Prothero, p. 224. 



322 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1593 

worship, or as were the Presbyterians, hoping that the govern- 
ment would change the organization of the church. They 
were more than Non-conformists; they were Separatists. In- 
asmuch as they were to apply their theories of church govern- 
ment to political government also, they are of very great 
importance in the later history both of England and of 
America. 

228. Persecution of the Extreme Protestants. — Archbishop 
Grindal, who had succeeded Matthew Parker in 1575, had been 
very lenient toward the reformers; but Whitgift, who came 
into office in 1583, was ready to carry out the queen's wishes 
and to suppress all synods and classes as well as congregational 
meetings.^ He applied the Act of Uniformity with such sever- 
ity as to call out a protest from Lord Burghley. Whitgift 
worked through the Court of High Commission, a body of men 
provided for in the Act of Supremacy for the purpose of judging 
and punishing heresy.^ He also used his authority as arch- 
bishop of Canterbury to deprive many Presbyterians of their 
benefices. In 1585-1587, when parliament and the privy coun- 
cil seemed inclined to favor Puritanism, Elizabeth rebuked those 
bodies, coming out positively against all " new-fangledness." 
Thus beaten, the Puritans resorted to new methods, and in 1588 
began to issue pamphlets of a most scurrilous character, attack- 
ing the bishops, and signed " Martin Marprelate/' The violence 
of the attack showed that the Puritans were losing ground, and 
that villification was taking the place of honest discussion. 

This violent controversy, occurring in the very year of the 
Armada, injured the Puritan cause and led to a reaction against 
all Non-conformists and Separatists. They were charged 
with disloyalty, in that they threatened England with dis- 
union at a very critical juncture, and certain measures were 
taken against them, which culminated in the act of parliament 
of 1593.^ This act was directed against " seditious sectaries and 

1 Prothero, p. 211. 

2 Prothero, pp. 227, 232, 235, 237; Adams and Stephens, No. 172. 
8 Gee and Hardy, No. LXXXVI. 



15981 LAST YEARS OF ELIZABETH*S HEIGN. 328 

disloyal persons," and inaugurated a new persecution, chiefly 
of the Separatists. Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry, prominent 
leaders of this religious body, were put to death, April 6, 
1595. Others were driven into exile, and all were silenced. 
This persecution continued for many years, and among those 
who suffered was a congregation of Separatists in northern 
England, who, "hunted and persecuted on every side," fled 
from England in 1608, going first to Holland, and finally to 
America.^ 

229. Last Years of Queen Elizabeth's Reign. — Elizabeth's last 
years were stormy. The war with Spain dragged on ; a new 
insurrection in Ireland under Tyrone, nephew of Shane O'Neil, 
kept that land in a state of unbroken disturbance ; while the 
persecution of the Koman Catholics, the Puritans, and the 
Separatists provoked bitterness of feeling at home. Elizabeth 
herself was growing old and petulant. Her favorite, Essex, 
who had taken Leicester's place in her affections, was a source 
of continual anxiety to her ; and his disobedience, misconduct, 
and finally his treason, for which he was executed in 1601, 
caused her great grief. With parliament she came into conflict 
over the question of monopolies. When her diminishing in- 
come made it impossible for her to make gifts, she had been 
accustomed to grant to favored persons absolute control over 
the sale of such commodities as salt, corn, oil, etc., and in 
1601 parliament protested against this practice.^ Her submis- 
sion on this occasion was almost the last great act of her life. 

Elizabeth was outliving her time. Burghley, the last of her 
old advisers, had died in 1598, and the younger men, such 
as Essex, Eobert Cecil, Ealegh, the Bacons, and others, were 
out of touch with her and quarrelling for position and influ- 
ence. The new generation of the nation, who knew more of 
her persecutions than of her cautious diplomacy and wise mod- 
eration, greeted her appearance with less enthusiasm than of 



1 Hart, Contemporaries, Vol. I, Chap. XV; Colby, No. 70. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 180; Colby, No. 61 B, Prothero, pp. 111-117. 



324 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. [1603 

old and called her miserly. Gradually she drew near her end, 
and on March 20, 1603, she died, in the seventieth year of her 
age and the forty-fifth of her reign.^ 

230. Greatness of the Elizabethan Era. — As we emerge from 
the long and involved period of Elizabeth's reign, we realize 
that we are face to face with a new and more modern era of 
English history. England had become a power of first rank, 
and her people had increased in numbers and become pros- 
perous. For forty years- Englishmen had been building ships 
and sailing on the sea, although they had made but a slight 
beginning in the direction of colonization. Commerce was 
growing, as was also the navy, and the few colonial expedi- 
tions, notably those of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter 
Kalegh,^ foreshadowed the great colonial activities of the sev- 
enteenth century. Agriculture received a new impulse when 
in 1598 parliament passed an act forbidding enclosures for 
pasture purposes.^ Sheep rearing consequently declined in 
importance, tillage was encouraged, with better farming 
methods the soil became more productive, and new staples 
like hops and potatoes were introduced. As wealth increased, 
so did luxury and display, and corruption and poverty became 
common. The poor and the vagabonds were dealt with once 
more in the famous poor laws of 1597 and 1601,^^ which ex- 
tended the law of 1563 and brought into more systematic form 
all the earlier measures, throwing the care of the poor on the 
parishes and the execution of the laws on the justices of the 
peace. In all these respects w^e see not only important ad- 
vances in industry and the social life of the kingdom, but we 
see that matters like coinage, industry, wages, apprenticeship, 
hours of labor, charity, and poverty, were now regulated and 
controlled by the state. 

More noteworthy even than the changes in material condi- 



iLee, No. 143. For characteristics of Elizabeth, see Henderson, Side 
Lights, Group I, pp. 1-9;* Group IV, pp. 20-32. 
2 Lee, No. 147. 
8 Prothero, pp. 9a-96. •» Prothero, pp. 96-105.. 



1603] GREATNESS OF THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. 325 

tions were the advances in intellectual and literary life. There 
is no better witness to the reality of the new national feeling 
in England than the expression which it found in poetry, 
prose, and the drama during the last twenty years of Eliza- 
beth's reign. For this there had been a long preparation. In 
the towns the level of education had been steadily rising for 
two centuries, and free grammar schools, founded by the trad- 
ing classes, had spread widely a knowledge of reading and 
writing, and made it common among the people. But no one 
could have anticipated the richness of the English Eenaissance 
when it finally came. Beginning in poetry with Spenser's 
Fairy Queen, in drama with Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, in prose 
with Ascham's The Schoolmaster, Lyly's Euphues, and Hooker's 
Ecclesiastical Polity., it reached its highest form in the plays of 
Shakespeare. There is no opportunity here to discuss the 
genius of these men or the growth of a national drama. The 
Elizabethan literature, like the deeds of Elizabethan seamen, 
stands as an expression of national confidence and enthusi- 
asm, of national independence and self-reliance. A period of 
courage and hope in the life of a nation cannot but be rich 
in great creative works of literary genius. 

The same confidence in the future is seen in the interest 
taken by Englishmen in their own history. Matthew Parker 
was almost the first to edit historical texts relating to early 
English history ; Holinshed and Stow were among the first to 
write chronicles in English; while Elizabeth herself was the first 
sovereign to begin a collection, in systematic form, of national 
documents, a work which resulted a century later in the pub- 
lication of Rymer's Foedera, and is represented to-day by the 
great Calendars of State Papers, an index to the splendid col- 
lections of official materials which England possesses for the 
writing of her own history. 



References for Chapter X. — Busch's England under the Tudors, 
Henry VII (translated from the German, 1895) ha^ long been a standard 



B26 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 

authority, but is distinctly inferior in style and treatment to Fisher's 
volume (V) in the Political History. There is a good life of Henry VII 
(1889) by Gairdner in the English Statesmen Series. Bacon's Life of 
Henry VII (in Spedding's edition of Bacon's Works, Vol. II) is well 
worth examining. Pollard has gathered the materials for the reign in The 
Reign of Henry VII, 3 vols. (1918), which contains texts illustrating nar- 
rative history, constitutional, social, and economic history, foreign rela- 
tions, the church, and Ireland. 

Owing to the publication of official records, the period after 1509 has 
been largely rewritten in the last seventy-five years. In 1856 and 1862, 
two works of very different character appeared : Froude issued the first 
volume of his History of England, 1509-1603, completed in twelve vol- 
umes in 1867 ; Brewer edited the first volume of the Calendar of State 
Papers, which began this invaluable series of more than three hundred 
volumes. Froude's work is brilliantly written and possesses unmistakable 
value ; but it is inaccurate in many particulars, and in its justification of 
Henry VIII has not won the approval of scholars. Its defects appear in 
exaggerated form in the same author's Catherine of Aragon (1891). 
Brewer's volumes opened a new era in the study of the Tudor period, 
and the prefaces were published separately by Gairdner in two volumes, 
entitled The Reign of Henry VIII (1884). About the same time, Fried- 
mann's Anne Boleyn, 2 vols. (1884), a remarkable study based on unused 
evidence, made its appearance ; and on the ecclesiastical side Dixon 
began his History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the 
Roman Jurisdiction, the sixth volume of which, carrying the subject to 
1570, was issued in 1902. From the material thus far presented, Moberly 
wrote The Early Tudors (1887), a rather colorless work, in the Epoch 
Series, and Bishop Creighton his Wolsey, in the English Statesmen Series. 
With the death of Brewer, Gairdner became the editor of the State Papers 
of Henry VIII's reign, and has been the chief authority upon the period 
since that time. Apart from the prefaces to his volumes in the Calendar, 
his most important publications are "New Light on the Divorce of Henry 
VIII,'' in the English Historical Review for 1896, 1897 ; Volume IV 
(1902), in A History of the English Church, and Lollardy and the Re- 
formation, 3 vols., a work of first rank. Pollard has written Henry VIII 
(1902, cheaper ed. with references, 1913) and Thomas Cranmer (1904), 
and Merriman has issued Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, 2 vols. 
(1902), a work of merit. On the dissolution of the monasteries see Gas- 
quet's Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, 2 vols, (new ed. 1906), 
a work which put the subject on a new foundation and demonstrated the 
untrustworthiness of Froude's account, Hibbert's The Dissolution of the 
Monasteries, as illustrated by the suppression of the religious houses of 



REFEEENCES FOR CHAPTER X. 327 

Staffordshire (1891), and Savine's "English Monasteries on the Eve of 
Dissolution," in Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, Vol. I 
(1909), which in some important particulars corrects Gasquet's account. 
An article by Miss Bateson in the English Historical Review (Vol. VI, 
1891), "Archbishop Warham\s Visitation of the Monasteries in 1511," 
should also be examined. 

For Edward A^I Fronde's account is far from satisfactory, though it is 
free from the warped judgments that characterized the treatment of 
Henry VIII. Pollard's England under Protector Somerset (1900) is ad- 
mirable, as is also his volume (VI, 1547-1603) in the Political History. 
Gasquet's Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer (1890) is valu- 
able ; and Leach in his English Schools at the Reforination, 1546-154^' 
(1897), his- histories of schools in various volumes (1903-1913) of the Vic- 
toria History of the Counties of England, and his Schools of Mediaeval 
England (1915) has placed the early history of education in England 
on a new basis. One should also consult his Educational Charters and 
Documents (1911). For the reign-of Mary, the works of Froude, Gaird- 
ner, Dixon, and Pollard are satisfactory. Stone's The Reign- of Mary 
the First (1901), though written by an apologist, deserves careful con- 
sideration. Davey's The Nine Days' Queen (1909) is a biography of 
Lady Jane Grey. 

For Elizabeth, Creighton's Age of Elizabeth (1889), Epoch Series, and 
Beesly's Elizabeth (1892), in the Statesmen Series, are excellent, though 
the latter presupposes some previous knowledge of Elizabeth's reign. 
Creighton's Queen Elizabeth (1896), written for the Goupil Series, has 
been published without the illustrations at a reasonable price. Martin 
A. S. Hume's volumes on the period, though having faults due to the 
rapidity of preparation, are invaluable for a study of Elizabeth's foreign 
relations and policy: The CourtsJiips of Elizabeth (1896); The Year 
after the Armada (1896); PJiilip II of Spain (1897); The Great Lord 
Burghley (1898); Treason and Plot (1901); Two English Queens and 
Philip (1908) are among the best. For the history of Queen Elizabeth's 
reign after 1588 we have Cheyney's History of England from the Defeat 
of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth, 2 vols., of which the first ap- 
peared in 1914. This history will contain also an account of English 
institutions during the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. 

For the Jesuit movements we have Simpson's Life of Campion (1867), 
Law's Historical Sketch of the Jesuits and Seculars in the Reign of 
Elizabeth (1900), Taunton's History of the Jesuits in England (1901), 
and Pollen's The English Catholics in the Reign of Elizabeth, 1558-1580 
(1920); for the Puritans on the Continent Hind's Making of England 
(1895). The naval history of the reign has received elaborate treatment 



328 THE TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION. 

at the hands of Corbett in Drake and the Tudor Navy, 2 vols. (1898), 
The Successors of Brake (1900) ; and by Oppenheim in his History of 
the Admimstration of the Royal Navy and of Merchant Shipping in Con- 
nection Therewith, 1509-1550 (1896). On the constitutional side, Hal- 
lam's Constitutional History of England is still useful, but for Elizabeth 
and James I should be supplemented by the preface to Prothero's Select 
Statutes and Other Constitutional Documents (4th ed. 1913). On the sub- 
ject of landholding, — ownership and tenancy, — open fields, enclosures, 
and pastures, which were involved in the break-up of the manor and the 
agrarian revolution, a great deal has been written by Leadam, Corbett, 
Gay, Savine, Slater, Gonner, and Tawney, in the form of articles or 
papers. A satisfactory discussion of these agrarian questions may be 
found in Lipson's Economic History, Gonner's Common Land and En^ 
closure (1912), Prothero's English Farming, Past and Present (1912, 
cheaper ed. with new preface, 1917), Slater's English Peasantry and the 
Enclosure of the Common Fields (1907), and Tawney's The Agrarian 
Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912). On social conditions, in ad- 
dition to the writings of Cheyney, Warner, Lipson, and Tickner, and the 
chapters in Social England, Vol. Ill, mention may be made of Ayde- 
lotte's "Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds " in Oxford Historical and 
Legal Studies, Vol. I (1913), and Dunlop's English Apprenticeship- and 
Child Labour (1912), which begins with the Tudors. An admirable 
work is Shakespeare'' s England, 2 vols. (1916), which treats of the life 
and manners of the age. For commerce consult Williamson's Foreign 
Commerce of England under the Tudors (1883) ?ind Maritime Enterprise, 
1485-1558 (1913), Lucas's Overseas Enterprise, and Lingelbach's Internal 
Organization of the Merchant Adventurers (1903). Unwin's Industrial 
Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1904) is a 
standard work, and Leonard's Early History of English Poor Law 
Relief (1900) an excellent authority. 

For Scotland Hume Brown's History of Scotland, and for all that 
relates to Ireland Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors, 3 vols. (1890) 
and Hamilton's Elizabethan Ulster (1919) and The Irish Rebellion of 
I64I (1920) should be used. Dowell's A Histoi-y of Taxation and Taxes, 
4 vols. (1884, 2d ed. 1888), and Kenyon's The Gold Coins of England 
(1884), and the same author's edition (1887) of Hawkins's The Silver 
Coins of England, deal with aspects of the financial situation. Shaw's 
History of Currency, 1^92-1894 (1895), may also be mentioned. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 

231. England in 1603. — As long as England was in danger 
from outside attack, the people forgot their religious and politi- 
cal differences and united for the defence of their land. But 
when the pressure had been removed by the victory over the 
Armada in 1588, they began to think about these differences 
and to define their religious and political views more ex- 
actly. The Anglicans, led by Whitgift and afterward by 
Bancroft and Laud, gave more exact form to their doctrine 
and their church organization, and drew farther and farther 
away from the Presbyterians and the Independents. During 
the next forty years these religious parties became more hos- 
tile to each other. On the political side the attitude of the 
people toward their sovereign was undergoing a change. The 
middle class, merchants, traders, and lawyers, had come to 
the front, and not only was this class influenced by new inter- 
ests, such as those of trade and commerce, but it was actuated 
by new ideas which had come from the Eenaissance and the 
Eeformation. The representatives of this middle class were 
taking the lead in the House of Commons. This house in the 
older days of the Lancastrians, when parliament had seemed 
to be very powerful, had been always subordinate to the House 
of Lords. But now it was to assume an independent position 
and to take up the struggle with monarchy, in order to see 
whether in the king or in the representative of the people 
lay the final authority in matters of government. 

The people of England had accepted. the absolutism of the 
Tudors because they knew that a strong monarchy was needed 

829 



330 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1603 

to raise the kingdom to a position of political and religious in- 
dependence. After 1588, England had attained this position 
and an absolute monarch was no longer required, as it had been 
in the days of Henry VII and Henry VIII. During the last 
years of Elizabeth's reign parliament had become restless, and 
had occasionally expressed its dissatisfaction with Elizabeth's 
methods of governing. As long as the queen lived, however, 
the nation remained loyal to the sovereign whose reign had 
brought it peace and prosperity. But neither parliament nor 
nation were willing to yield so submissively to the wishes of 
her successor. 

232. James I (VI of Scotland). — James I, son of Mary Queen 
of Scots, was Elizabeth's successor, and the man called upon 
to face this difficult situation in 1603. His right to the throne 
was based not on parliamentary act^ nor on any other title 
than that of heredity. It has commonly been supposed that 
Elizabeth on her death-bed named the king of Scotland as her 
successor, but that statement is no longer thought to be en- 
titled to credit. Erom his birth James had lived in Scotland 
and knew nothing of the English except by hearsay. He 
had not been particularly successful there, and would never 
have been selected as king of England because of any special 
qualifications that he had shown himself to possess. He was 
good-natured, fond of peace, and opposed to extremes of any 
kind. Probably at heart he was a coward. He was learned in 
his way, a poet, a writer on theological and other questions, 
and, in his own opinion, an authority upon a good many of the 
troubled questions of the time.^ 

But unfortunately he had not the qualities of a ruler such 
as England needed if she were to go forward increasing her 
prosperity and influence at home and abroad. He was con- 
ceited, too often dogmatic, and very easily angered if any one 



1 Parliament simply recognized his title ; Adams and Stephens, No. 181. 

2 For characteristic traits of James I, see Henderson, Side Lights, Group V^ 
pp. 33-42. 



1603] JAMES I — PURITANS AND ROMAN CATHOLICS. 331 

opposed him. He never was able to take a large view of any 
dispute, and his judgment was often influenced by petty details. 
More serious still, he did not understand the new spirit of 
the English people, and had none of Elizabeth's sympathy and 
tact ; none of her instinctive sense of what the people wanted. 
He was obstinate, never knew how to yield at the right time, 
and looked on one who differed with him as an enemy. 

More important still were his views on kingship. He had 
been born a king and had well-developed ideas of the royal 
prerogative. He believed that the king's powers were from 
God, and that his right to rule came from God alone. This 
belief led him to take a high stand regarding his kingly rights, 
and to assert, often very loudly, that he was above parliament 
and was not bound by the will of that body or the laws of the 
land. This doctrine, which was that of the Tudors, and it 
may be added, of kings generally at that time, was accepted 
as the true theory of kingship by the majority of the English 
and Scottish people.^ It was only after this principle had been 
abused by James's successor that the real conflict between the 
rights of the king and rights of parliament, that is, between 
monarchy by divine right and monarchy limited by law, broke 
out. During the reign of James serious trouble was avoided, 
and the king, though never popular, was on the whole not 
disliked. 

233. Attitude of James toward Puritans and Roman Catholics. 
— Each of the extreme parties, Puritans and Eoman Catholics, 
looked forward with expectation to the coming of James, be- 
cause it was known that he did not sympathize with the per- 
secutions of Roman Catholics and Dissenters permitted by 
Elizabeth during the last years of her reign. But James very 
soon let it be known that he proposed to uphold the estab- 
lished church. While on his way from Scotland to London, 



1 Lee, Nos. 149, 150. For an excellent historical presentation of this doc- 
trine, see Figgis, The Theory of the Divine Right of Kings (new ed. 1914), a 
work that every student of the Stuart period should read. 



332 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1603 

the Puritans presented to him a petition, called the Millenary 
Petition,^ because a thousand clergymen were supposed to have 
signed it. In this petition they asked for certain moderate 
changes in the service and the practices of the church. In 
answer, James summoned a conference at Hampton Court, 
where representatives of the Anglicans and the Presbyterians 
had a lengthy debate. But the discussion only aroused in 
James himself a controversial spirit, and he abruptly dismissed 
the disputants saying, *^If this is all that they (the Presby- 
terians) have to say, I will make them conform themselves or 
I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse." From 
this time forward the Puritans had little to expect from the 
king.^ 

Toward the Roman Catholics, James showed himself more 
tolerant. He did not like the penal laws passed under Eliza- 
beth, and remitted many fines imposed for not attending the 
parish churches. In his opening speech to parliament in 
1604,^ he declared in favor of moderating these laws ; but that 
body, instead of doing as the king wished, made the laws 
increasingly severe. It is possible that James would have 
executed the laws with mildness had not two or three plots at 
the beginning of his reign destroyed all hope of toleration. 

The Cobham Plot, said to have been planned to abduct the 
king and place Lady Arabella, niece of Lord Darnley, on the 
throne, is chiefly famous because Sir Walter Ralegh was 
implicated, though whether justly or not is uncertain. Ralegh 
was sentenced to death, but was reprieved by the king, and 
remained twelve years in the Tower. More famous still, and 
scarcely better understood, is the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.* 



1 Prothero, p. 413; Gee and Hardy, No. LXXXVHI; Lee, No. 151. 

2 Compare Gee and Hardy, No. LXXXIX; Colby, No. 69; Kendall, No. 69. 
s Prothero, pp. 283-284. 

4 Henderson, Side Lights, Group VI, pp. 43-47. The character of the Gun- 
powder Plot has been recently under discussion. Father Gerard, in What 
was the Gunpowder Plot ? denying the traditional story ; Gardiner, in What 
the Gunpowder Plot Was (1897), endeavoring in part to uphold it. 



1605] 



JAMES I — GUNPOWDER PLOT. 



333 



This was a plot to blow up the houses of parliament, by means 
of gunpowder placed in the cellar vaults, and so destroy 
the king, his sons, and the members of both houses. The 
traditional story has it that one of the conspirators, hoping to 
save a cousin, Lord Monteagle, member of the House of Lords, 





(li'Y Kawkks' Lantern. 

The poster behind the lantern contains a picture of the conspirators (be- 
ginning at the right, John Wright, Catesby, Guy Fawkes, Percy, Thomas 
Winter, Christopher Wright, Robert Winter, and a servant), a description 
of each, and a facsimile of the letter to Lord Monteagle. It is a copy of a 
very rare contemporary print. The lantern was presented to Oxford Uni- 
versity by Robert Heywood in 1641. 

wrote him a warning letter, which Monteagle sent to the king. 
The cellars were searched and one Guy Fawkes was found 
guarding the powder. The government made a great deal of 
the plot, encouraging the general suspicion that it was part of 
a great Roman Catholic conspiracy. That it was so, has, how- 



334 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1604 

ever, never been proved; but the immediate results were all 
that parliament could have desired. Fawkes and others were 
cruelly executed, and the penal and recusancy laws were made 
much more severe. From this time toleration for Eoman 
Catholics became impossible, and the hatred of them felt dur- 
ing the century that followed may be traced to the impression 
that the Gunpowder Plot left on the minds of the English 
people. 

234. Quarrel of James with his First Parliament (i 603-1610). — 
James, at the very beginning, had come into conflict with par- 
liament over the question of the treatment of the Eoman 
Catholics, and during his entire reign he was constantly quar- 
relling with it. Ko serious outbreak, however, occurred. On 
June 20, 1604, the House of Commons took occasion, in a 
strongly worded apology,^ to state the rights and liberties of 
English subjects and to enumerate the fundamental privileges 
of the House. To understand this document, says Gardiner, 
is to nnderstand the causes of the success of the English 
Revolution.^ This apology had been called out by an at- 
tempted interference of the king with the right of the House 
to decide in cases of disputed elections. 

During the next few years other difficulties arose. Of these 
the most famous was the Bate case in 1606. For James, as 
for Elizabeth, the income of the sovereign was insufficient, and 
in the case of the former, court extravagances made the matter 
worse. Parliament, out of touch with the king, was not par- 
ticularly liberal. James retained a duty, imposed by his prede- 
cessor, on currants imported into England. The way of it was 
this: the Levant Company had paid Elizabeth £4000 for the 
monopoly of the currant trade, and for the privilege of taxing 
all merchants trading in currants who were not of the company. 
When the company dissolved in 1601, the crown, in order not 
to lose the £4000, continued the tax that the company had 



1 Kendall, No. 70 

2 Prothero, p. 286; Gardiner, History of England (1603-1642), Vol. I, p. 186. 



1610] JAMES I — POLICY OF PEACE ABROAD. 335 

levied. One John Bate refused to pay this on the ground 
that it was illegal, but the judges of the Court of Exchequer 
decided in favor of the king.^ This particular case, which was 
decided on its merits, would not have led to trouble had it not 
been that the king claimed the entire right to impose new 
duties, and in 1608 issued a commission to his treasurer, 
Kobert Cecil, stating this claim.^ In 1609 James raised 
money by levying a feudal aid when his son Henry was 
knighted.^ The outcry against this act was so great that 
parliament, after long negotiation, agreed to bay the king's 
feudal rights for £200,000.* But the bargain fell through, and 
it was not until 1661 that the old rights were finally abolished. 

235. Policy of Peace Abroad. — The hostility of parliament 
toward the Eoman Catholics and its suspicion of King James 
were increased at the beginning of the reign by Cecil's deter- 
mination to revive his father's policy and to bring to an end 
the war with Spain. On August 19, 1604, a treaty between 
England and Spain was signed m London. This treaty was 
very unpopular, partly because of the prevailing hatred of Spain, 
and partly because in signing it the English government 
seemed to be deserting the Dutch, who were still struggling 
with Spain. " God help our good neighbors in Holland and 
Zealand ! " was the cry of the English people on hearing of 
this treaty ; and it is said that on the day the peace was pro- 
claimed, prayers were offered in the pulpits of London for the 
success of the Dutch. But in 1608 a truce was effected be- 
tween Philip III and the Dutch, which brought the long war 
to an end and prepared the way for the complete independence 
of Holland. 

Until his death^ in 1612, Cecil controlled the policy of the 
king, which was consistently one of peace. In 1610 he entered 
into an alliance with Henry IV of France. In reality, this 

1 Prothero, pp. 340-361 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 184. 

8 Prothero, p. 353. * Prothero, pp. 295, 299. 

8 Prothero, p. 355; Lee, No. 152. 



336 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1613 

was an alliance of England, France, the Netherlands, the 
German Protestants, Venice, and Savoy against the house 
of Hapsburg and the Emperor Eudolf, for the purpose of 
separating Spain from Germany, and of destroying the domi- 
nance of the house of Hapsburg in Europe. Two years later, 
James entered into a treaty with the German Protestants, 
promising aid against the emperor and the Catholic party in 
Germany in case of need. This agreement was followed in 
1613 by the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to the son 
of Erederick IV, elector of the Palatinate and the head of the 
Protestant Union in Germany.* Thus James seemed to stand 
in close relations with the Protestants in Germany and Hol- 
land, and with the Catholic powers, Spain and France. This 
anomalous position led to serious complications at a later 
time. 

236. Commerce and Colonization. — But the greatest interest 
of the period, so far as affairs outside of England were con- 
cerned, lay not in treaties with European states, but in the 
expansion of commerce and the beginnings of settlement in 
America. Companies which, at the close of the preceding 
century, had been organized for the promotion of commerce had 
taken the place of private individuals, who in the older days 
had traded on their own account. The oldest of these com- 
panies was that of the Merchant Adventurers, which had 
been incorporated in 1564 and the trade of which had now 
become limited to the Netherlands and countries adjoin- 
ing. But new companies entered the field, and were duly 
chartered by the crown. Among others were the Muscovy 
Company, trading with Russia; the Levant Company, trading 
with Turkey, Syria, and Asia Minor ; the Prussian or Eastland 
Company, trading with the lands along the Baltic ; and, most 
important of all, the East India Company, trading with India, 
Persia, Arabia, and the Spice Islands. Other companies also 
were chartered after 1600. 

1 Henderson, Side Lights, Group VII, pp. 47-54. 



1624] JAMES I — COMMERCE AND COLONIZATION. 337 

Such companies as these, having a monopoly of trade, were 
looked. upon at this time as public benefits, inasmuch as they 
not merely made money for themselves, but also promoted the 
welfare of the state by taking out manufactured goods and 
bringing back coin or raw materials to the kingdoms. Each 
company had a charter, and was organized with a governor, 
a deputy governor, a council, and a general court of all the 
members of the company. By means of these companies of 
merchants, trade with all parts of the world increased, and 
became a matter of so much interest to King James that he 
extended the privileges of the companies and appointed com- 
mittees at home to look after trade and commerce. 

But not only for trade were companies organized. In 1606 
two companies, the London Company and the Plymouth Com- 
pany, were organized for purposes of colonization. Their 
charters authorized them to make settlements in North America, 
and the London Company started a settlement at once at James- 
town in Virginia. After many struggles, the Jamestown 
colonists began to prosper, and to them is due the credit of hav- 
ing founded the first permanent English settlement in the New 
World. For the first seventeen years of its career the colony 
was threatened with interference from Spain, who considered 
its establishment below latitude 41° an invasion upon her terri- 
tory. Not until 1624, when King James took Virginia under 
his protection and reversed his policy toward Spain, was the 
safety of the colony secured. The East India Company 
began the founding of a colonial empire for England in the 
East; the London Company began the establishment of a 
colonial empire in the West ; and to both James I contributed 
all that he could. 

By a new policy of settling English and Scottish colonists in 
Ulster in Ireland, James transformed that country into a pros- 
perous Protestant district. But the remainder of the land still 
continued to be tribal, hostile, and strongly Eoman Catholic, 
and the problem of how to manage Ireland was as far from a 
solution as ever. 



338 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1612 



237. The Spanish Policy of King James. — After 1612 a change 
took place in the character and policy of the king. In that 
year Cecil died, and also the king's eldest and ablest son, Prince 
Henry. James, always susceptible to the influence of favorites, 
now took new advisers, whose methods added nothing to the 
popularity of the king or of his court. The first of these men, 
Robert Carr, not only encouraged the extravagance of the king 
and involved him in new financial troubles, but also was 
connected with serious scandals at court. Carr's immoral con- 
duct brought down upon him the disfavor of the rigid Puritans, 
and eventually led to his downfall in 1616. The second favorite, 
George Villiers, later duke of Buckingham, took the place of 
Carr, and was the trusted adviser, not only of King James, but 

afterward of his son, 
Charles I 

Behind Carr and Villiers 
was working a powerful 
pro-Spanish party, the 
leaders of which were the 
Spanish ministers. James 
came very much under 
the influence of the most 
shrewd and sagacious of 
these men, Gondomar, 
who, like others of his 
party, had given up all 
idea of conquering Eng- 
land by force, and were 
working persistently to 
restore the influence of 
Spain in England by in- 
trigue. Gondomar believed that Protestantism was not deeply 
rooted in England and might gradually be got rid of, espe- 
cially if he could separate James from the Protestants on 
the Continent. At first he was successful; for James, angry 
with the Dutch because they were getting control of the whale 




Sir Walter Ralegh. 



t 



1618] JAMES I -THE SPANISH MARRIAGE. 339 

fishery and the spice trade in the East, was willing to affront 
them, and agreed to a marriage between his son Charles and 
the Spanish Infanta. 

Just at this time Ralegh, who had been in prison for twelve 
years, experimenting in chemistry and writing a history of the 
world, proposed to lead an expedition to Guiana to find a mine 
of gold, of which he had heard in a former expedition. James 
let him go, on the express condition that he should avoid all 
conflict with the Spaniards. Unfortunately, Ralegh not only 
failed to find the mine and returned without gold, but during 
his absence he fought with the Spaniards and burned a Spanisli 
town. Gondomar demanded that he be given to Spain for pun- 
ishment, and though James would not consent to this request, 
he had Ralegh executed under the old sentence of 1603. Thus 
Ralegh fell a victim to Spanish vengeance and to King James's 
short-sighted policy of maintaining at all costs the alliance 
with Spain. 

238. The Spanish Marriage. — With Cecil no longer to guide 
him, James soon found himself in a hopeless tangle, in all 
that concerned foreign affairs. Notwithstanding its unpopu- 
larity in England, he persisted in his plan of marrying his 
son to the Spanish Infanta, whose dowry he needed to pay 
his debts. In 1613, as we know, the daughter of James had 
married Frederick of the Palatinate, who, on the death of 
his father, became Frederick V and also head of the Protestant 
Union of Germany. James would naturally be expected to 
support his son-in-law; but if his son should marry a Spanish 
princess and circumstances should arise placing Frederick V 
and Spain on opposite sides in a great struggle, the king 
of England might find it difficult to know what to do. 

It was in this position that James found himself when 
the Thirty Years' War broke out in I6I8.1 The Bohemians, 

1 On the Thirty Years' War, see Gardiner's Thirty Years* War (Epoch 
Series, 1889), and Henderson's Short History of Germany (1902), VoL I, 
Chaps. XVII.XVIII; Wakemau's Europe, 1598-1715 (Periods Series, 1894), 
Chaps. IV, V. 



I 
ft 



i 

a 


s 




>^ 


ft 


M^ 



g «- 

g li 
I 




[340] 



1623] JAMES I — FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. 341 

in whose kingdom the first conflict took place, invited Fred- 
erick to be their king; but were he to accept the crown, he 
would virtually declare war against Austria, who had a 
hereditary claim to Bohemia, and whose archduke was 
emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Frederick applied to 
his father-in-law ; but James, vacillating, could not nerve him- 
self to give a straightforward answer, because he was afraid 
of the effect of such an answer on Spain. Frederick, trust- 
ing in aid from James, accepted the crown. But he was 
beaten at the White Mountain by the imperial forces in 1620, 
driven from Bohemia, and then had to see his own state, 
the Palatinate, invaded by the enemy. 

James was compelled to make the restoration of the Palat- 
inate one condition of the Spanish marriage ; for it was clear 
that he could not marry his son to a Spanish princess while 
the Spaniards were helping the imperial troops to devastate 
possessions of his son-in-law. Inasmuch as the Spanish on 
their side were making as their chief condition the restora- 
tion of Catholicism in England by royal mandate, it is evident 
that the chances for the marriage were few. 

The negotiations were continued, however, and in 1623 Prince 
Charles and the duke of Buckingham went to Madrid to com- 
plete the marriage treaty.' The question was debated in the 
Spanish Council, where it was decided that to restore the Palat- 
inate was to break with the emperor and could not be done. 
Charles returned to England unmarried, and James, angry be- 
cause of the failure of his schemes, at once made new plans. 
Hoping by means of an alliance with France to recover the 
Palatinate, he turned from Spain and completely reversed his 
former policy, by seeking the hand of the French princess, 
Henrietta Maria, for his son, Prince Charles.^ 

239. Relations of James with Parliament : Financial Difficulties. 
— During this period James was hopelessly in debt, and, as we 

1 Henderson, Side Lights, Group VIII, pp. 55-60. 

2 Henderson, Side Lights,' GvouTp IX, pp. 61-66. 



342 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1614 

have seen, one reason for his friendly attitude toward Spain 
was the belief that a Spanish dowry would relieve him of some 
of his troubles. In 1614 he had been compelled to summon a 
second parliament. But as that body wished to discuss what 
it considered illegal taxation, impositions, and the like, before 
granting the king more money, James dismissed it at once. This 
parliament was called the Addled Parliament, because it did not 
pnss a single measure. In the same year James tried to raise 
money by benevolences, or forced loans, first from the cities 
and rich merchants and afterward from the people generally.^ 
Many protests were raised against the scheme, and a certain 
Oliver St, John, a gentleman of Marlborough, refused to make 
a loan, and charged the king with breaking his coronation oath. 
St. John was in consequence sentenced to fine and imprison- 
ment, though the sentence afterward was remitted.^ Inasmuch 
as the Addled Parliament had passed no measures, James ruled 
practically without parliament from 1611 to 1621, and went on 
extending his expenditures and adding to his debts. He was 
upheld in his claims of prerogative by the Privy Council, the 
House of Lords, the bishops, and the courts of law. Chief 
Justice Coke, who refused to subordinate the independence of 
the judicial bench to the absolute power of the king, was re- 
moved in disgrace from his position,^ and shortly afterward 
Prancis Bacon, a defender of the royal prerogative, became lord 
chancellor. 

So complicated had foreign relations become by 1621 that 
James hoped a third parliament, were it called, would support 
him in his defence of the Palatinate. And at first this body 
consented to make him a grant of money. But James had no 
real intention of undertaking war ; and thereupon the parlia- 
ment began to find fault with him. The king reprimanded it 
sharply for meddling " with anything concerning government 



1 Lee, No. 153. 

2 Gardiner, Historij of England, 1603-1642, Vol. II, pp. 269-270. 
8 Gardiner, History, Vol. Ill, pp. 1-25. 



1625] CHARLES I. 343 

or deep matters of state." * Parliament, in its turn, interpreted 
this action as an infringement on the right of freedom of 
speech, and made a vigorous protest, recording in its journal a 
statement that freedom of speech was a privilege of parlia- 
ment.- Ten days afterward, James, having sent for the jour- 
nal, tore out the offending page, and then dissolved parliament.^ 
These events aroused great excitement in England and led to 
many expressions of bitterness and discontent. The Protest of 
1621 supplemented the Apology of 1604, and both anticipated 
the struggle which was to be fought out under the successor of 
James, his less practical and less trustworthy son Charles. 

240. Results of James's Rule. — King James died in 1625. 
His policy had everywhere proved a failure. In his desire 
for peace and the Spanish alliance he had sacrificed Ealegh, 
had refused to help his Protestant son-in-law in Germany, and 
had got into trouble with parliament, only in the end to 
marry his son to a Prench princess, and, in 1624, to declare 
war on Spain. By his views on monarchy and his tenacious 
adherence to his royal prerogative, he had turned parliament 
against him ; and yfet, in the end, had been forced to yield 
most of the points in dispute. Parliament successfully de- 
fended its privileges ; secured the right to discuss affairs of 
state ; overthrew monopolies ; * and, by impeaching Sir Francis 
Bacon in 1621 for receiving bribes, made good the principle 
that the ministers of the king ought to be held responsible for 
their acts. When James died, it was evident that his successor 
would have to be a conciliatory and tactful man if he were to 
avoid a conflict with the suspicious and discontented represent- 
atives of the people. 

241. Charles I. — Charles I was not the man to meet the 
situation. He was personally more pleasing than James; 
and the fact that his reign opened with war against Spain 
made him for the moment popular. But Charles, by descent, 



1 Prothero, p. 310. » Lee, No. 154. 

2 Prothero, pp. 311-315. * Adams and Stephens, No. 188. 



344 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1624 

was not an Englishman, and he never understood the English 
law or the English people. Gardiner, the historian of the 
Stuarts, says, "Born of a Scottish father and a Danish 
mother, with a grandmother who was half French by birth 
and altogether French by breeding, with a French wife, with 
German nephews, and a Dutch son-in-law, Charles had noth- 
ing in him in touch with that national feeling which no 
ruler of England can afford to despise." ^ Moreover, he had 
no great statesman to guide him. Buckingham was only a 
courtier; and neither he nor the king had the genius to be 
a leader of a nation. By their lack of statesmanship and 
ability they destroyed, for the moment, the faith of the 
people in the kingly office, and provoked a civil war, which, 
for the time being, checked the commercial and colonial ex- 
pansion of England, and deprived her of her naval prestige. 

242. Beginning of the Struggle with Parliament. — Before 
his accession, Charles had promised the parliament of 1624 
that, in arranging the terms of his marriage with Henrietta 
Maria of France, he would not consider any proposition favor- 
ing the Boman Catholics of England. But when the mar- 
riage took place. May, 1625, it was found that he had broken 
his promise. Parliament desired the alliance with France, in 
order to carry on war against Spain, but it did not wish to 
pay the price of concessions to the Catholics. When, there- 
fore, a new parliament was summoned, trouble at once began. 
Charles asked for a large grant of supplies, and parliament 
showed its want of confidence in the king and Buckingham, 
both by voting but a small amount of money for the war with 
Spain, and by settling upon the king the tonnage and pound- 
age — that is, the customs duties — for one year only, instead of 
for life, as had been the custom hitherto. 

The wisdom of parliament in so acting became apparent 
when the king sent his first important expedition against 
Spain. Buckingham believed that he could do what Drake 

1 History of the Great Civil War (1642-1649), Vol. II, p. 159. 



1628] EVENTS LEADING TO THE PETITION OF RIGHT. 345 

had done thirty years before, — capture Cadiz and carry off a 
Spanish treasure ship. But both leaders and men were want- 
ing; for the commander, Edward Cecil, was not a second 
Drake, and the sailors lacked the spirit of the earlier period. 
The Spanish treasure ship eluded the English ; the English 
sailors, drunk with Spanish wine, refused to fight; and the 
expedition ended in inglorious failure. 

Parliament at once impeached Buckingham. But the king 
refused to recognize their right, saying, " I must let you know 
that I will not allow any of my servants to be questioned 
among you, much less such as are of eminent place and near 
me." Again the question was debated as to whether or not 
the king's ministers were responsible to parliament. By im- 
peaching Buckingham, parliament maintained that they were; 
but the king, in his message, maintained that they were not, 
and immediately dissolved parliament (1626).^ 

243. Events leading to the Petition of Right. — The king's 
position was becoming exceedingly awkward. Charles had no 
money, for Parliament had been dissolved so hastily that a 
grant had not been made. Besides, having quarrelled with 
Louis XIII about the marriage treaty, he was in danger 
of becoming involved in war, not only with Spain, but with 
France also. He saw the need of desperate remedies, and 
betweeiu 1626 and 1628 used every device to raise money. 
He made illegal exactions of the customs revenues ; ^ levied a 
forced loan of £300,000 to be repaid in eighteen months ; ^ and 
planned a general assessment of all the people, just as if 
parliament had granted a subsidy. When the judges denied 
the legality of the loan, he caused them to be imprisoned; 
when individuals refused to pay it, he imprisoned them if 
rich, and if poor impressed them in the navy or quartered 
soldiers upon them.* 

1 Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution (2d ed.), 
No. 3; Henderson, Side TAghts, Group X, pp. 67-84. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No. 6. 3 Gardiner, Documents, No. 7. 
4 Henderson, Side Lights, Group X, pp. 67-84. 



346 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1628 

Even these arbitrary methods failed to supply the king with 
money sufficient for his purposes. Charles was called upon 
to aid the German Protestants in their war against the Austro- 
Spanish house ; but having no money, he was unable to send 
subsidies. Moreover, having quarrelled with France, he 
wished to aid the Huguenots, who were fighting for their 
political independence. But the expedition sent to La Eochelle, 
under Buckingham, in 1627, resulted more disastrously than 
had that to Cadiz. Thus the need of money to carry on the 
wars with France and Spain compelled the king to summon 
his third parliament (1628). 

The new body was quick to seize its opportunity. Under 
the leadership of Wentworth and Chief Justice Coke, it at 
once proceeded in debate and conference to define the imme- 
diate grievances of the English people — forced loans, arbi- 
trary imprisonment, and above all the absolutism of the king. 

244. The Petition of Right.^ — At first the Commons tried to 
accomplish their purpose by drawing up a bill, defining the 
liberties of the subject, to be passed into law in the usual 
manner. But fearing that the king would not give his assent, 
because such law would bind him too much, they changed the 
bill to a petition — a petition of right, a remedy available to 
any one of the king's subjects at any time — enforcement of 
which in the courts was dependent on the king's word and not 
on the law of the land. Their object was to obtain from the 
king a voluntary limiting of his prerogative in certain particu- 
lars, in order that the courts might in such cases interpret the 
law in favor of the petitioners. But to make their petition 
more impressive and to give it the solemnity of a bill, they 
caused it to be passed through the houses in the manner of a 
bill, and they demanded of the king that he give his consent 
in full parliament. This the king did, after some hesitation. 



1 Gardiner, Documents, Nos. 0, 10 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 189. The 
most recent discussions of the subject are in Relf's The Petition of Right 
(1917) and in History, July, 1920, pp. 99-103. 



1629] 



THE PARLIAMENT OF 1629. 34< 



on June 7, 1628. Thus the petition became a matter of per- 
manent record, a circumstan<?e which rendered it much more 
difficult for the king to refuse to carry out his promise. 

The House of Commons had now gained a great victory. 
The king had given his word that neither he nor his officers, 
ministers, or judges would uphold forced loans or taxes with- 
out the consent of parliament, would imprison arbitrarily, 
would billet soldiers upon the inhabitants against their will, 
or would exercise martial law in times of peace. The joy of 
the people was everywhere manifest. " The steeples of the 
city churches rang out their merriest peals. As the dusk 
deepened into darkness, bonfires were lighted up amidst re- 
joicing crowds. Since the day when Charles had returned 
from Spain, no such signs of public happiness had been seen." ^ 
245. The Parliament of 1629. — The passage of the Petition 
of Right marks the beginning of a great struggle for religious 
and constitutional rights. Yet at this early date an agreement 
might easily have been reached, for the best men in the House 
of Commons, such as Pym and Eliot, were anxious that king 
and parliament should work in harmony. But even before 
the close of the parliament of 1628 a question had arisen 
which showed that harmony was impossible. The king 
declared that he had the right to levy tonnage and pound- 
age, that is, custom dues, without the assent of parliament; 
but parliament, resting its case upon the word "tax" in the 
Petition of Right, asserted that this would be a breach of 
the new law.^ 

A serious difficulty arose on January 20, 1629, when the 
members assembled for a new session. The king said that the 
Anglican bishops were the true interpreters of the Thirty-nine 
Articles, and that all people must accept their interpretation;^ 
but the Puritan members of parliament denied that the bishops 
had any such authority. A deadlock ensued. Finally, when 

1 Gardiner, History, Vol. VI, pp. 309-310. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, Nos. 11, 12, 16; Adams and Stephens, Nos. 190, 191 
8 Gardiner, Documents, No. 13; Gee and Hardy, No. XCI. 



348 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1629 

the king adjourned the house for the second time (March 2, 
1629), a group of members, led by Eliot, Strode, Selden, Valen- 
tine, and Holies, held the speaker by force in the chair while a 
series of resolutions was adopted, as a kind of appeal to the 
country against the king and the bishops.^ These resolutions 
declared that whoever should introduce "innovations" or 
should support either popery or Arminianism, or should up- 
hold the king's right to levy tonnage or poundage without a 
grant by parliament, or should pay tonnage and poundage 
under these circumstances, should be declared " a capital 
enemy to kingdom and commonwealth."^ Immediately after 
this defiant action, the king dissolved parliament, and sent the 
five leaders to the Tower. There, after a confinement of three 
years, Eliot died, a martyr to the cause of parliamentary 
liberty (November, 1632). 

246. The Personal Rule of Charles I. — Charles, having discov- 
ered that he could not work with parliament, determined to get 
along without it. For eleven years he governed England in 
the way that seemed to him best. He stood alone, for Buck- 
ingham had been assassinated by a discontented officer named 
Eelton, just before parliament had assembled in 1629. His 
government was not all bad, as has too frequently been 
concluded, for it accomplished a great deal that was good for 
England; but the methods were bad and illegal, and brought 
the work of the king and his advisers into discredit. Charles 
believed in a paternal government that should do all it could 
to benefit the people and the kingdom,^ but at the same time he 
would not tolerate the interference of the people or their rep- 
resentatives with what he deemed his special rights as king. 

iKendall,No. 72. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No.- 15; Adams and Stephens, No. 192. 

8 " Princes are to be indulgent nursing fathers to their people ; their modest 
liberties, their sober rights, ought to be precious in their eyes. . . . Sub- 
jects, on the other side, ought, with solicitous eyes of jealousy, to watch over 
the prerogatives of a crown." — Wentworth's conception of the Constitution, 
in Gardiner, History, Vol. VII, p. 25. Sir Francis Bacon and many others of 
the time held the same vie^»<.„ 



1632] POLICY OF WENTWORTH AND LAUD. 349 

He considered all who did not agree with him or his methods 
as misguided or evil-minded persons, and believed it was his 
duty to bring their opinions into accord with his own. Such 
facts show how little Charles understood the history or temper 
of the English people. 

The chief advisers of the king during this period were 
Wentworth and Archbishop Laud. Wentworth, who was the 
real author of the Petition of Eight, had soon found himself 
out of touch with Eliot and the Puritans. Satisfied with the 
correction of the abuses named in the Petition, in 1628 he had 
given his support to the cause of the king. Laud, the repre- 
sentative of the high church party among the Anglicans, 
had come into favor with the king, and was guiding his 
ecclesiastical policy. Neither Wentworth nor Laud desired 
anything but the good of England ; but each was intolerant and 
uncompromising, and insisted that his system be applied with- 
out regard for the opposition it met on every side. The good 
that they did has been forgotten, and only the evil remembered. 
They accomplished their purposes through the Privy Council, 
the Star Chamber, the Court of High Commission, and the 
Council of the jSTorth; and by the methods employed, made 
these bodies more hateful to the people than they had been 
in the days of Elizabeth. 

247. The " Thorough " Policy of Wentworth and Laud. — Went- 
worth was made president of the Council of the North in 
1628, and became a member of the Privy Council the next 
year. Having been appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 
1632, he at once applied his policy of " thorough " ; that is, he 
undertook to reform the Irish system without regard for the 
private interests of any one. He attempted to bring order and 
efficiency out of chaos and corruption. He reorganized the 
army, suppressed pirates, enforced discipline, and encouraged 
manufactures and commerce. His motives were excellent, but 
his methods were questionable. He bullied the Irish parlia- 
ment, fined juries that decided against him, abused Irish offi- 
cials, and constantly interfered with the customs of the Irish 



350 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1633 



tribes, particularly in the matter of their lands. The result 
was that, though for seven years he gave Ireland peace and 
order, he destroyed every vestige of self-government, and on 
his withdrav^al, in 1639, left the island seething with discon- 
tent. Wentworth had tried to demonstrate that an absolute 
ruler with good intentions is better than constitution, law, and 
local custom. 

Meanwhile in England Laud was trying to do for the church 
what Wentworth was attempting to do for Ireland. Having 

definite ideas as to what the 
doctrine, ritual, and organi- 
zation of the church should 
be, he was determined to 
force these ideas upon 
others. Inasmuch as he 
was a member of the Privy 
Council and sat regularly 
on the Courts of Star 
Chamber and High Com- 
mission, he was able to 
make these bodies the in- 
struments of a religious 
tyranny. The king enlarged 
the powers of these courts 
at his pleasure, and through 
them Laud harried Puritans 
and Presbyterians and all 
who by word or deed dif- 
fered with him. After 
1633, when he was made 
archbishop of Canterbury, 
he became " thorough " in the strictest sense of the word. He 
deserves credit in that he restored order and decency in the 
churches and ennobled the ritual. But, on the other hand, he 
persecuted Puritan divines ; imprisoned and mutilated writers 
like Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton, who in their pamphlets 




Archbishop Laud. 

From a copy of Van Dyck's 
painting at Lambeth. 



1640] FINANCIAL MEASURES OF CHARLES L 351 

attacked the stage, court life, and church ceremonial; and 
horrified Puritans generally by persuading the king to issue 
the declaration of sports, restoring Sunday amusements.^ The 
excitement prevailing in England was intense; the emigra- 
tion of Puritans to America increased; and those who remained 
might well have echoed the prayer in Bastwick's Litany , " From 
bishops, priests, and deacons. Good Lord, deliver us." 

248. Financial Measures of the King. — Having no money by 
parliamentary grant, the king had to employ all sorts of finan- 
cial expedients to raise it. He levied tonnage and poundage, 
but the returns from this source proved wholly insufficient. 
Therefore he revived old feudal obligations, and compelled 
every freeholder having land worth £40 a year to become a 
knight or, in case of refusal, to pay a fine. He sent commis- 
sioners to trace the boundaries of the " forests," and by enlarg- 
ing these boundaries, compelled all whose lands fell within the 
new limits to pay large amounts for the release of their estates. 
He sold to incorporated companies monopolies of coal, soap, 
starch, iron, gunpowder, tobacco, salt, and the like, thus 
injuring legitimate trade and increasing the costs of living. 
By the knighthood fines he estranged the well-to-do gentry; 
by enlarging the forests he offended the nobility and men of 
quality ; by the sale of monopolies he made the lot of the wage- 
earners more burdensome. The only classes not affected were 
the very poor and the unemployed. Both in Ireland and in 
England the government made exceptionally successful efforts 
to carry out the poor laws, and to relieve the poor from the 
oppression of the rich. The Privy Council enforced the law 
of apprentices, suppressed vagrancy, gave work to the unem- 
ployed, and protected the destitute. A competent writer says 
that during the period from 1631 to 1640, there was more 
poor relief in England than at any other time in English 
history.* 



1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 17; Gee and Hardy, No. XCIII. 
* Leonard, Early History of English Poor Relief , p. 256. 



352 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1634 

Finally Charles made a demand for ship-money, seeing in it 
"a spring and magazine that should have no bottom and an 
everlasting supply on all occasions." He caused a writ to be 
directed to the sheriff of every county in England, instructing 
him to provide a ship of war for the king's service, or in lieu 
thereof to pay a sum of money into the king's treasury.* The 
royal navy was small and in bad condition; it was rarely 
repaired or improved, and it was manned by men better fitted 
to be gardeners and barbers than sailors, and by officers hope- 
lessly corrupt. Formerly, in time of war, it had been cus- 
tomary to levy ship money on the seaports; but the king's 
attorney-general, Noy, suggested that the practice be revived in 
times of peace. In 1634 the first levies were made on London 
and a few other ports; in 1635 a second levy was made 
on the inland counties ; in 1636 a third ; and in 1637 a fourth. 
There was grumbling, but the majority of those assessed 
paid the tax. In 1636, however, John Hampden, a wealthy 
gentleman of Buckinghamshire, resisted payment, and the 
case was tried in 1637 before the judges of the Court of the 
Exchequer. Seven decided for the king, five against.^ Charles 
was delighted with the result, and continued to levy the tax ; 
but it was ominous that the majority of judges was only two, 
and that in the minds of the people the defenders of Hampden 
had the better of the argument. 

249. The Scottish Revolt. — After such a decision, par- 
liamentary government in England seemed to be at an end, 
and in no year did its restoration appear less likely than in 
1637. Nevertheless, in that year, a movement began in 
Scotland which was destined to destroy the system of govern- 
ment that the king, Wentworth, and Laud had so carefully 
built up. After 1603 Scotland and England had the same 
king, but separate parliaments ; and, in 1636, Charles, as king 
of Scotland, had agreed to the extension of Laud's system into 



1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 19; Adams and Stephens, No. 193; Lee, No.l5S. 
< Gardiner, Documents^ Nos. 20, 21, 22; Adams and Stephens, No. 194. 



I 



1640J 



CHARLES I -THE SCOTTISH REVOLT. 



353 



that land. This act showed him to be a man of less wisdom 
than his father, who knew the temper of the Scottish people 
too well to tamper with their religion. The new liturgy 
roused the Scots to revolt. In March, 1638, all classes of the 
people— noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, 
and commons — signed the National Covenant, thereby sup- 
porting the reformed reli- 
gion of Scotland, and declar- 
ing their detestation of all 
contrary religion or doctrine. 
They soon made it evident 
that they would tight, if need 
be, to defend the Covenant ; ^ 
in fact, they went so far, in an 
assembly held in Glasgow, 
in November, 1639, as to 
abolish Episcopacy and the 
prayer-book altogether. The 
king, aroused by this defiant 
act, called Wentworth from 
Ireland to help coerce Scot- 
land, at the same time creat- 
ing him earl of Strafford 
(1640). 

Strafford knew that Charles had neither army nor money, 
and was, therefore, in no condition to war against a nation 
like the Scots, roused in the present emergency to an extraor- 
dinary pitch of religious excitement. He therefore advised 
the king to call a parliament and throw the responsibility of 
a decision upon its members. The king, glad to be relieved 
of the responsibility, accepted the suggestion, and on April 13, 
1640, convened the first parliament that had sat in eleven years. 

1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 2?. The best account of the relations of 
Charles I with Scotland will be found in Hume Brown, History of Scotland, 
Vol. II, pp. 284-348; note especially pp. 304-305 for the signing of the 
Covenant. 




John Pym. 

After a portrait by C. Janssen 
in South Kensington Museum. 



354 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1640 

But this body, led by John Pym, a Somersetshire squire, at 
once raised the question of redressing grievances before grant- 
ing supplies, and in three weeks it was dissolved (May 5). 
Thereupon Strafford gave a new version of his policy of 
" thorough." " Go on vigorously," he advised the king, " loose 
and absolved from all rules of government. . . . You have 
an army in Ireland you may employ here to reduce this 
kingdom. Confident as anything under heaven, Scotland 
shall not hold out five months." This hasty and unfortunate 
remark was interpreted by the English people as a threat to 
bring over Irishmen to crush their liberties, and was destined 
to bring Strafford himself to the block. 

In Scotland the policy of "thorough" failed. A Scot- 
tish army invaded England, entered Newcastle, and nearly 
captured York. The king called a council of peers, but re- 
ceived only the advice to summon another parliament.^ There 
w^as nothing else for him to do. The Scottish army was in the 
northern counties. Strafford had not succeeded in forcing 
money from London, or even in borrowing it of Spain or the 
pope. People in the counties were resisting the payment of 
ship money ; the apprentices and journeymen were rioting in 
London, and everywhere moderate men were fearing a Eoman 
Catholic conspiracy. Under these circumstances were elected 
the men who, at Westminster, on November 3, 1640, assembled 
in parliament. A great crisis was at hand. 

250. Reform Work of the Long Parliament. — The new 
assembly is famous as the Long Parlia,ment. Few bodies 
have done greater deeds than this one, and few worse. Its 
members had come together with a grim determination to be, 
as Pym said, " of another temper than they were the last par- 
liament ; " determined not only "to sweep the house clean 
below, but to pull down all the cobwebs which hung in the 
tops and corners, that they might not breed dust and so make 
a foul house hereafter." They had resolved to a^ccomplish 

1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 24. 



1641] REFORM WORK OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 355 

three things : (1) to release from prison those who had suffered 
from the king's arbitrary methods; (2) to punish the king's 
ministers and advisers; (3) to strengthen the constitution so 
that arbitrary rule would be impossible hereafter. 

First of all, therefore, Prynne, Bastwick, Burton, and others 
were released from prison and welcomed to London by crowds 
of sympathizers. On November 11, Strafford was impeached 
and sent to the Tower ; ^ and a month later Laud likewise was 
imprisoned. Others of the king's ministers were impeached, 
but escaped by fleeing to France. Six judges were imprisoned 
and all monopolists expelled. The charge of treason did not 
hold in the case of Strafford, for his acts had not been legally 
treasonable, inasmuch as they had not been directed against the 
king. The House ojf Commons, therefore, changed the bill of 
impeachment to one of attainder, which called for no trial and 
gave no opportunity to the accused to defend himself.^ The 
Lords hesitated to pass the bill, but yielded when they learned 
that the king was negotiating with the English army in York- 
shire to march on London and rescue Strafford. To his shame, 
Charles himself submitted, and signed away the life of his min- 
ister, to wdiom he had given the promise, on his w^ord as a king, 
that he " should not suffer in life, honor, or fortune." ^ On May 
12, 1641, Strafford was executed on Tower Hill, in the presence 
of two hundred thousand persons. Laud, after remaining five 
years in the Tower, met the same fate at the hands of parlia- 
ment in 1646. 

In the meantime the amending of the constitution had begun. 
Fearing lest the king might cut short the present work by a 
prorogation or dissolution, and then endeavor to rule again 
without parliament, the House of Commons passed the Trien- 
nial Act, which ordered that no more than three years should 

1 Colby, No. 71, gives the first draft of the charges ; compare Kendall, 
No, 76. 

2 See note 3, p. 212 ; Gardiner, Documents, No. 29 ; Adams and Stephens, 
No. 197. 

8 Lee, Nos. 158, 158 a, 158 b ; Kendall, No. 77. 



356 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1641 

ever elapse without a summons of parliament.^ It also pro- 
vided that in case the king refused to issue writs summoning 
the members, the House of Lords should do so, and in case that 
body should refuse, the sheriffs in the counties and the mayors 
in the cities should hold elections without writs. If the sheriffs 
and mayors failed in their duty, the electors were to meet 
without further notice. Another act forbade the king to dis- 
solve the existing parliament without its own consent.^ Each 
act was duly signed by the king. 

Finally, the parliament swept away the courts that the king 
had made so obnoxious during his period of personal rule : the 
Star Chamber, High Commission Court, the Councils of the 
North and of Wales. It made the levying of tonnage and 
poundage absolutely dependent on a parliamentary grant, pro- 
hibited further tampering with the forest boundaries, forbade 
the exacting of fees for knighthood, and declared ship-money 
unlawful.^ In this work of reform the members acted with 
extraordinary unanimity and step by step brought the con- 
stitution of England nearer the form it bears to-day. The 
common law was placed above the king, and extraordinary 
courts of justice were permanently forbidden. These reforms 
represent the greatest and most important work of the Long 
Parliament. 

25L Schism in Parliament. — As long as political questions 
only were discussed, all the members of the Long Parliament 
worked together in harmony to reform the constitution; 
but as soon as religious questions were brought forward, this 
harmony disappeared. The conservative members, whom we 
may call the Church party, led by Hyde, Falkland, and Cul- 
peper, had cooperated in all constitutional changes thus far 
made. Preferring the Anglican system as it was, they were 
unwilling to tamper with the ^fsting organization of the 

1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 27; Adams and Stephens, No. 195. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No. 30. 

3 Gardiner, Documents, Nos. 31, 34-38; Adams and Stephens, Nos. 198-203; 
Gee and Hardy, No. XCIX. 



1641] SCHISM IN PARLIAMENT. 357 

church. The extreme Puritans, that is to say, the Presbyte- 
rians and Independents, led by Hazlerig, Cromwell, and Sir 
Harry Vane, were, however, not satisfied. They wished to 
abolish altogether the government of archbishops and bishops, 
" with all its dependencies, roots and branches." This phrase, 
which occurred in a petition supported by the extreme Puritans, 
gave them the name of the Eoot and Branch party .^ In 
August, 1641, they tried to pass a root and branch bill abol- 
ishing Episcopacy. So heated was the controversy over this 
question of " reform " versus " abolition," that when parliament 
resumed its session in October, 1641, two definite parties were 
already forming in the House of Commons and in the House 
of Lords. 

Two events increased the excitement created by the debates. 
In August the king had gone to Edinburgh, and rumors spread 
that he was planning to ally himself with the Scots in order to 
overthrow parliament. This report aroused deep anger among 
the Eoot and Branch men, and made them more than ever 
hostile to the royalist cause. In October came the report of a 
frightful massacre in Ireland, where Eoman Catholics had joined 
with Celtic chiefs to drive out the Protestant settlers in Ulster. 
The report was enormously exaggerated, but for the moment it 
looked as if Ireland were lost to England forever. The Puri- 
tan leaders in parliament sought for the cause of the revolt 
and found it, as they thought, in the intrigues of the queen's 
court and the king's councillors. This conviction decided 
them to take a step which for some time they had had under 
consideration. If the nation were to guard against further plots 
of the king, it was necessary that parliament should more ex- 
actly define its position. Therefore, in a memorable sitting on 
November 8, a Grand Eemonstrance, or appeal to the nation 
for support against the king, was presented for adoption.^ 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. XCVII ; Gardiner, No. 26, for the petition of the 
Londoners. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No. 43; Gee and Hardy, No. CXI; Adams and 
Stephens, No. 204. 



358 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1641 

In this remonstrance all tlie members of parliament were 
called upon to commit themselves to the opinions of the ex- 
treme Protestants. The document, containing over two hun- 
dred paragraphs, summed up all the woes that the " Jesuited 
papists, the bishops, and the king's councillors " had brought 
upon the kingdom during the preceding fifteen years. As the 
remedy for these evils, it demanded, first, that the king 
should select councillors of whom parliament could approve; 
second, and more important still, that a synod of divines be 
called to reform the church.^ The Church party might per- 
haps have accepted the first remedy, but it could not accept the 
second, because no Anglican would trust an assembly of Pres- 
byterian and Independent ministers to model the church as it 
pleased. The debate began on the morning of ISTovember 22, and 
lasted far into the night. When finally the roll was called, it 
was found that the remonstrance had been carried by the nar- 
row margin of eleven votes. The immediate effect was almost 
a pitched battle on the floor of the house. " Some waved their 
hands wildly in the air, others took their swords in their scab- 
bards out of tlieir belts." " I thought," wrote an eye-witness, 
''that we had all sat in the valley of the shadow of death." ^ 
For the Root and Branch party it was a critical moment and a 
great victory. "If the remonstrance had been rejected," said 
Cromwell, "I would have sold all that I had and never seen 
England any more." But it was also a deplorable victory, for 
in consequence the nation was divided into two camps, whose 
attitude toward each other became daily more hostile and irrec- 
oncilable. As a great historian says, " The Civil War wias all 
the nearer for that night's work." 

252. Arrest of the Five Members. — The Church party now 
went over to the side of the king, and in the following January 
Charles made Culpeper Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
Falkland Secretary of State. With every month the excite- 
ment increased, and rumors were abroad that to save the crown 

1 The Grand Remonstrance, §§ 185, 197. ^ Colby, No. 72 A. 



1642] THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 359 

and the church, Charles was preparing to treat Pym and 
Hampden as Pym and Hampden had treated Strafford. That 
he had deliberately formed such a plan is doubtful, for it 
was his habit to act rather from impulse than design. Early 
in January he heard that the parliamentary leaders were re- 
solved to impeach the queen as the cause of all the mischief. 
The chivalrous instincts of the king were aroused, and encour- 
aged by the schism in parliament and the support received 
from the Church party in the House of Commons, he deter- 
mined to impeach the leaders, who were not only trying to 
destroy the royal authority, but were about to insult the 
queen. 

On January 3, 1642, he sent Attorney-general Herbert with 
the sergeant-at-arms to the House of Commons with orders to 
arrest Pym, the main author of the Remonstrance, and with 
him Hampden, Haslerig, Holies, and Strode, on the ground 
that they were seeking " to subvert the fundamental laws and 
government of the kingdom of England." ^ But this act, which 
was distinctly illegal, because the king had not the power to im- 
peach any one, was vehemently resisted by the House, and the 
king's plan failed. At this crisis Charles committed an irre- 
trievable blunder. On the following day, he went in person 
with four hundred soldiers to seize the men whom he could 
not impeach. Again the king's plan failed ; for the leaders, 
having been warned in time, had made their escape. As 
Charles turned to withdraw, the members of the House whose 
rights he had ignored expressed their resentment by the cry of 
" Privilege ! " " Privilege ! " ^ It is probable that he had not 
intended to act treacherously, but he was hopelessly in the 
wrong, and had committed an act which not only destroyed 
parliament's faith in him, but rendered compromise impossible. 

253. The Causes of the Civil War. — The attempted arrest of 
the five members was a sufficient cause for war, because it 
implied that the king was ready to use force, not only to intimi- 

1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 46. 2 Kendall, No. 78. 



360 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1642 

date parliament, but also, if necessary, to get rid of it altogether. 
Parliament, on its side, was now forced to figtit, not only to exer- 
cise that supreme authority which it demanded, but even to 
retain those rights and privileges which it had already won. 

But the arrest was not the final cause of the war which 
followed. That is to be found in the struggle between the king 
and parliament for the control of the militia of the kingdom. 
Parliament, distrusting the king, passed a militia bill in March, 
1642, which took from the king the appointment of the lord- 
lieutenant of militia and the governor of the fortresses of the 
kingdom. This bill the king refused to sign ; and parliament, 
having transformed it into a parliamentary ordinance, deter- 
mined to enforce it without the king's consent.^ Two months 
later (May), Charles forbade the trained bands to obey par- 
liament,^ and issued commissions of his own, calling out the 
militia.^ In July parliament, in its turn, appointed a com- 
mittee of public safety, voted to raise an army, and named 
the earl of Essex as leader of its troops."* On August 22, the 
king raised his standard at Nottingham, and civil war began. 

Though the attempted arrest of the five members and the 
militia bill were the immediate causes of the war, the real 
causes lay deeper. Behind these issues lay the greater issue 
— whether the king or the parliament should control the 
government in England. Technically, the king was right, for 
he was claiming his old powers ; whereas the House of Com- 
mons was claiming powers that it had never exercised before. 
Morally, the king was wrong, for he had abused his powers ; 
and parliament was right in attempting to restrain him. In 
June, 1642, six months after the attempted arrest of the 
members, the House sent to the king nineteen propositions 
as a kind of ultimatum, and in these demanded the right to 
control the appointment of ministers, councillors, and judges ; 
to manage home affairs, foreign affairs, the army and the navy, 



1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 50. s Gardiner, Documents, No. 55. 

* Gardiner, Documents^ Nos. 52, 54. ^ Gardiner, Documents, No. 56o 



1642] CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS. 361 

the church, justice, and, in short, all that concerned the govern- 
ment of the kingdom.^ But no king of that day would will- 
ingly have consented to such a curtailment of his powers, unless 
he had been absolutely compelled to do so. 

It is, however, quite jjossible that these political difficulties 
might have been arranged by a compromise had not the reli- 
gious question complicated the situation. The dispute regarding 
political supremacy became tenfold more serious when its set- 
tlement threatened men with the loss of their religious liberties. 
One party, the Puritans, believed that the supremacy of the 
king meant the overthrow of its faith ; the other, the Anglicans, 
that the supremacy of parliament meant the summoning of an 
assembly of divines to tamper with the liturgy and to reform 
the government of the Anglican church. No compromise be- 
tween these views was possible. 

254. The Opposing Forces: Royalists (Cavaliers) and Parlia- 
mentarians (Roundheads). — England was at this time divided 
into two camps. A great majority of the House of Lords and 
a third of the House of Commons followed the king. Outside 
of parliament^ the bulk of the gentry and landowners, the 
cathedral cities, and the university centres, like Oxford and 
Cambridge, were on the side of the king ; while the inhabitants 
of the towns, the manufacturers, merchants, and artisans, were 
on the side of parliament. Though exact lines cannot be 
drawn, we may say that socially the nobility were on one side, 
the freeholders and yeomanry on the other ; that industrially 
the landowners were on one side, the commercial and trad- 
ing classes on the other ; and that geographically the west and 
north stood for the king, against the more thickly populated 
regions of the south and east, which supported parliament. 
Yet, in fact, the history of the war shows family divided against 
family, town against town, district against district. The war 
injured England economically and commercially ; but it did not 
cripple her, for at no time was it accompanied with that savage 

1 Gardiner, Documents^ No. 63. 



362 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1642 

brutality which characterized the contemporary Thirty Years' 
War in Germany (1618-1648). 

255. Opening of the War. — When war began, parliament had 
the advantage in money and resources, because it controlled 
the navy and the leading seaports and was supported by 
London and the rich manufacturing towns. But the king was 
at first successful, because he had on his side the cavaliers and 
men-at-arms, whose profession was that of fighting. The battle 
of Edgehill,! fought on October 23, 1642, resulted in defeat for 
the parliamentarians, and the advantage thus gained by the 
royalists was very slowly lost. Even in 1643, when Cromwell 
began to raise an army in the eastern counties, composed of 
" honest, godly men," led by captains of the same high charac- 
ter, victory was very slow in coming. Hampden was killed at 
Chalgrove Field in June, 1643,^ and by September parliament 
was sufficiently discouraged to turn to Scotland for aid. In 
the Solemn League and Covenant^ parliament made a bargain 
with the Scottish Presbyterians, by which in return for armed 
assistance it promised to establish, if possible, Presbyterianism 
in England. In fulfilment of their share of the bargain the 
Scots, in January, 1644, sent the earl of Leven across the 
Tweed with an army. 

But the great mass of the Independents did not like this 
compromise with Presbyterianism, and Cromwell, in particular, 
was opposed to paying such a price for aid from Scotland. 
He advocated religious liberty,^ and he disliked, not only the 
church system of the Presbyterians, but their intolerance also. 
From the time that parliament entered into the Solemn League 
and Covenant with Scotland may be dated the beginning of a 
separation between the Presbyterians and Independents. 

256. The New Model Army. — The first decisive battle of the 
war was fought on July 2, 1644, at Marston Moor. On one 



1 Colby, No. 73. 2 Colby, No. 72 B. 

3 Gardiner, Documents, No. 58; Adams and Stephens, No. 207; Gee and 
Hardy, No. CVII. ^ Kendall, No. 79. 



1645] 



THE NEW MODEL ARMY. 



363 



side were the Scots, under the earl of Leven, the parliamentary 
army under Fairfax, and the cavalry of the eastern counties 
under Cromwell ; ^ on the other were the royalists, led by Lord 
Byron and Prince Eupert, the king's nephew. The battle was 
long and for a time doubtful; but Cromwell's cavalry won 
the day by their splendid discipline and religious enthusiasm. 
The victory of Marston Moor 
gave to the parliamentarians 
the control of the region of the 
north. 

A more important result of 
the battle was the prominence 
it gave to Cromwell, who from 
this time forward labored to 
increase the efficiency of the 
army and to remedy the defects 
that had hitherto prevented 
success. Chiefly through his 
efforts, during the remainder of 
the year 1644 and the s^Dring 
of 1645, an entire change was 
effected in the army organiza- 
tion. For the first time a regu- 
lar army was created to take 
the place of the inefficient and untrained local levies. The 
soldiers were regularly paid, a rigorous discipline was intro- 
duced, and a high code of moral conduct was enforced. For 
officers Cromwell would not have politicians, gentlemen, or 
adventurers; he demanded men who were good fighters, and who 
were so strongly imbued with a love for the cause as not to be 
ready to make terms with the king after every failure. In 
accordance with his suggestion that no member of parliament 
should command in the army, both houses, after considerable 




Oliver Cromwell. 
From an engraving by Bartozzi 
after a painting by Walker. 



1 Kingston's East Anglia in the Civil War (1897) is excellent for Cromwell's 
work in the eastern counties in 1642-1643. 



364 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1645 

debate, passed the Self-Denying Ordinance, on April 3, 1645.^ 
Thus Cromwell, supported by parliament, was able to provide 
an army which was not only inspired with religious fervor, and 
was ready to light with faith in God and its cause, but which 
was also well disciplined and splendidly led.^ 

It was none too soon that such a fighting force was got 
ready ; for in Scotland there appeared for the king a new ally, 
who was carrying all before him. The fiery young earl of 
Montrose, at the head of his Highlanders, had beaten down 
the Presbyterian leader, Argyle, the head of the Campbells, 
and was winning victory after victory with lightning-like 
rapidity. The Scottish army was therefore needed to fight 
Montrose at home ; and upon the New Model Army of Crom- 
well fell the brunt of sustaining the war in England. On 
June 14, 1645, this splendid praying and fighting force won 
the battle of Naseby and crushed out the last hope that the 
king may have had of ultimate success.^ The war continued 
for a year longer, but ended with the surrender of Oxford to 
the parliamentarians, on June 24, 1646. Two years later 
fighting was resumed^ but by that time the situation had 
changed. Therefore the causes and results of the second civil 
war were, as we shall see, essentially different from those of 
the first. 

257. Growing Importance of the Independents and the Army. — 
After the Church party withdrew from parliament, the Pres- 
byterians were in the majority. In the propositions of Oxford 
(February 1, 1643), Uxbridge (November 24, 1644), and New- 
castle (July 4, 1646),* -they had attempted to negotiate with 

1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 63; Adams and Stephens, No. 209; Kendall, 
No. 80. 

2 Firth's CromwelVs Army, a History of the English Soldier during the 
Civil Wars, the Commonwealth^ and the Protectorate (new ed. 1912), is the 
only account of an important subject, and a book that is absorbingly inter- 
esting. 

3 Kendall, No. 81. 

* All these documents are given in Gardiner, Documents, Nos. 57, 61, 62, 
66, 67, 68, 70 ; Gee and Hardy, No. CVI. 



1647] IMPORTANCE OF THE ARMY. 365 

the king. In a series of measures passed in parliament they 
had attempted to transform the church. They had discarded 
the prayer-book and introduced the famous Westminster Cate- 
chism, and had ordered the abolition of Episcopacy and the 
establishment of Presbyterianism. But just as the Church 
party had given way to the Presbyterians, so now the latter 
were to fall before the more tolerant,^ but more anti-monarchi- 
cal, body of Independents, whO;, though a minority in parlia- 
ment, were the dominant factor in the army. 

With the close of the war and the failure of the Newcastle 
negotiations, the army came to the front and made itself 
master of the situation. To the consternation of the Presby- 
terian leaders, it refused to disband at the command of par- 
liament, and at a meeting in a plain near Newmarket (June 4, 
1647) issued the Solemn Engagement of the Army, saying that 
it would hold together until its demand of equal rights and 
common freedom for all should be granted. Thus the army 
was becoming not only democratic, but rebellious.^ At Triploe 
Heath, in August, it declared that parliament was too abso- 
lute and ought to come to an end, and at the same time it 
voted to impeach eleven members, who were considered in the 
main responsible for the Presbyterian policy. Parliament, 
thoroughly frightened, yielded, and the eleven members with- 
drew from the House. At this juncture London rose in 
defence of the Presbyterian majority, and Cromwell, who had 
thrown in his lot with the army, rather from hostility to the 
methods of the Presbyterians than from sympathy with the 
democratic principles of the soldiers, occupied the city. 
The result was most important. Having excluded the royalists 
and compelled the Presbyterian leaders to withdraw, the old 
Long Parliament was fast losing its character as a representa- 
tive body. Though it still called itself parliament, it repre- 

1 Compare Cromwell's letter in Kendall, No. 79. 

2 For an analysis of the democracy of the army, see Borgeaud, Rise of 
Modem Democracy in Old and New England (1894), Chaps. I, II, especially 
pp. 57-58. 



366 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1647 

sented the people of England only in name. The real power 
lay in the hands of Cromwell and the soldiers. 

258. Negotiations of the Army with the King. — The leaders 
of the army now tried, in their turn, to negotiate with the king. 
In August, 1647, they drew up the Heads of Proposals,'^ in 
which they demanded : (1) the dissolution of the present parlia- 
ment; (2) the summoning of regular parliaments every two 
years ; (3) a fairer representation of the people in parliament ; 
and (4) religious liberty. The leaders of the army, who had 
drafted the Heads of Proposals, were willing to leave more 
power in the hands of the king than were the rank and file. 
When, therefore, in September, the king refused to receive the 
Heads of Proposcds, the common soldiers broke out against the 
leaders and demanded the right of stating their conditions. 
Cromwell, in order to remain their leader, yielded and allowed 
them to present their case in what is known as the Agree- 
inetit of the People (October 19, 1647).^ In this document they 
insisted that entire authority be placed in the hands of the 
people and that a government of a completely democratic 
character be established. 

259. Second Civil War: Pride's Purge. — Just at this time 
further negotiations were prevented by the escape of the king 
from Hampton Court and his flight to Carisbrooke Castle 
(November 11-14, 1647). Charles, in his desire to promote 
discord among the Puritans, was at this time negotiating with 
the Scots, promising them religious concessions in return for 
military aid. His scheme failed ; for not only was he at 
Carisbrooke as much a prisoner as ever, but his flight and the 
threatened danger of the Scottish invasion for the moment 

1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 71. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No. 74; Borgeaud, Rise of Modern Democracy in 
Old and New England, pp. 6G-90. The plan of government liere presented 
was the same as that already established by tlie colonists of Connecticut in 
their " Fundamental Articles" (1639). The first and second " Agreement of 
the People " should be compared with the Connecticut " Orders " ; MacDonald, 
Select Charters, No. 14. The principles of democratic government as worked 
out in American history can be found in all these documents. 



1648] 



SECOND CIVIL WAR. 



367 



united parliament and the army against him. Both bodies 
refused to have any dealings with the king and prepared for 
war.^ 

Party lines were no longer those of the earlier period ; many 
who had fought against the king now went over to his side, 
fearing that the army wished to make changes in govern- 
ment much more radical than those of 1640-1641. Popular 




Carisbrooke Castle: Gateway, Tower Gateway, and Ruined Keep 

BEHIND. 

risings in the name of the king took place in Kent, Surrey, and 
Essex, where formerly parliament had been strong ; and mod- 
erates joined with royalists, not so much to defend monarchy as 
to oppose the growing power of the army. London, aroused by 
the arrogance Of the military leaders, was seething with dis- 
content, and the fleet had already declared for the king. The 
royalists rose in Wales, and in July, 1648, the Scots sent an 
army across the frontier to aid them. 



1 For the vote of " No Addresses," see Gardiner, Documents, No. 79. 



368 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1648 

But the war was of short duration. Fairfax, in a battle at 
Maidstone, July, 1648, put down the Kentish revolt, and by 
August, Cromwell, who had undertaken the campaign in Wales, 
had not only starved the royalists in Pembroke Castle into 
surrender, but was hastening to the aid of the forces of the 
north. There he won the battle of Preston, against Hamilton 
and his Scottish army. Ten days later, August 25, 1648, Fair- 
fax ended the war by the seizure of Colchester in Essex. 

The importance of the second civil war in deciding the fate 
of the king can hardly be overestimated. It embittered the 
army against the king and mude it fierce, implacable, and vin- 
dictive. It made the leaders resolve that " if ever the Lord 
brought them back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that 
man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed and the . 
mischief he had done to his utmost against the Lord's cause 
and people in these poor nations." Fearing lest parliament, 
in which the majority was still Presbyterian, was preparing 
to restore the king, they sent a remonstrance to that body, 
demanding that all negotiations should be broken off and the 
king punished. When parliament, paying no attention to 
the remonstrance, continued its negotiations, the army deter- 
mined to take matters into its own hands. On December 6, 
1648, it sent Colonel Pride to expel the Presbyterian majority 
from the House of Commons. Pride carried out his orders to 
the letter, and " purged " the House of the one hundred and 
forty-three Presbyterian members, leaving the Independents in 
control. Thus the Long Parliament ceased to be representative 
in any sense of the word, and under the name of the Eump 
Parliament, was only a partisan revolutionary committee, pre- 
pared to wreak its vengeance on the king. 

260. The Execution of Charles I. — Cromwell and the other 
leaders of the army had finally become convinced of the neces- 
sity of adopting extreme measures. On January 6, 1649, the 
so-called parliament passed an act creating a high court of 
justice of one hundred and thirty-five persons, to try the king 
for attempting "to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws 



1649] ESTABLISHMENT OF A REPUBLIC. 369 

and liberties of the nation, introducing in their place a tyran- 
nical and arbitrary government." ^ Nearly half of the men 
named refused to serve, some of them denying the right of such 
a court to try any one. But the remainder, undeterred, toot 
their places in Westminster Hall, on January 21, 1649, and 
proceeded with the trial. The king, denying the jurisdiction 
of the court, refused to plead.^ After five days the commis- 
sioners voted that the king should die, and on the 27th the 
sentence was read.^ On January 30 Charles was conducted to 
the scaffold erected outside of the banqueting hall of the palace 
of Whitehall, and there beheaded in the presence of the 
soldiers and of the citizens of London. That he deserved pun- 
ishment no one can deny; but that he deserved such extreme 
punishment from a tribunal neither legal nor competent, cer- 
tainly no one can affirm. The manner of his trial and his own 
composure and dignity at the scaffold raised him in the eyes of 
the people to the place of a martyr and overshadowed his real 
guilt. 

261. Establishment of a Republic. — Immediately after the 
execution of the king, the Rump Parliament appointed a coun- 
cil of state * and voted to abolish the office of king, on the 
ground that it was unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to 
liberty.^ It abolished also the House of Lords as useless, and 
dangerous to the people of England.^ On May 19, 1649, to 
complete its work, it proclaimed the republic, or common- 
wealth ; ^ and on the great seal placed the legend, " In the first 
year of freedom by God's blessing restored." 



1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 80; Adams and Stephens, No. 210; see also 
Lee, No. 160. 

2 Lee, Nos. 161, 162. 

3 Gardiner, Documents, No. 84; Adams and Stephens, Nos. 211,212; Lee, 
No. 163. For extracts iUnstrating the trial and execution of the king, see 
Henderson, Side Lights, Group XI, pp. 85-92; Kendall, Nos. 82, 83. 

4 Gardiner, Documents, No. 86; Adams and Stephens, No. 213. 

5 Gardiner, Documents, No. 88 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 214 ; Lee, No. 164. 

6 Gardiner, Documents, No. 89; Adams and Stephens, No. 215; Lee, No. 165. 
r Gardiner, Documents, No. 90 ; Adams and Stephens, No. 216 ; Lee, No. 166. 



370 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1649 

From the monarchy of 1640, England had passed through 
reform and civil war to the republic of 1649. But Cromwell 
and the Independent leaders had no intention of going further. 
They wanted no democratic republic. When the army pre- 
sented to the E-ump Parliament its constitutional scheme, — 
the Agreement of the Feoplej^ modilied and expanded, — that 
body swept it aside without consideration. This plan, which 
provided for a representative parliament elected by all the 
people, is famous because it outlined a democratic government 
similar to certain governments that had already been estab- 
lished by representatives of the same party in Ehode Island 
and Connecticut, in America. But England was in no condi- 
tion to make constitutional experiments ; she needed a power- 
ful governing body to meet the dangers that threatened her, 
and found it in the Rump Parliament, which consisted of 
about one hundred men, and had more actual power than 
ever had a Tudor or Stuart sovereign. But a government 
controlled by such an absolute body was bound to be a kind 
of despotism. 

262. Dangers confronting the Republic. — The execution of 
the king had e2j:cited a feeling of horror both at home and 
abroad. Never had such an event occurred in the history of 
Europe. The republic had not a friend among the foreign 
powers, and at home it was opposed by the royalists on one 
side and the democrats, or Levellers, on the other. Ireland 
was in revolt ; Scotland had already proclaimed Prince Charles, 
son of Charles I, as her king ; and the royalists of England were 
preparing to cooperate with the Irish and Scots. The moment 
was critical, for an invasion from. Ireland or Scotland might 
lead to the overthrow of the republic. 

The republic first turned its attention to the uprising in 
Ireland. On August 13, 1649, Cromwell landed in Dublin, 
and the combination of Munster Protestants and Irish 



1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 81; Gee and Hardy, No. CVIII: see ante, p. 
366, note 2. 



1650] DANGERS CONFRONTING THE REPUBLIC. 371 

Catholics proved powerless in the presence of his well- 
disciplined and well-officered force. Drogheda was taken in 
September, Wexford in October, and in each case the garri- 
sons were massacred without mercy. Cromwell justified these 
acts, not only as a revenge for the massacre of 1641 and as 
permissible under the rules of war, but also as a necessary act 
to save England from an invasion. The Irish held out for a 
year longer; but, meanwhile, "Ireland was devastated from 
end to end, and a third of its population perished during the 
struggle." Having subdued the Irish people by this brutal 
method, Cromwell set about restoring order and prosperity. 
He confiscated two-thirds of the Irish lands and settled 
English colonists upon them ; he endeavored to suppress 
Roman Catholicism and to introduce Protestantism ; and he 
undertook to administer justice impartially. Furthermore, he 
allowed Ireland free trade with England, and later admitted 
English colonists in Ireland to representation in the English 
parliament. But in the end his policy proved a failure in 
almost every particular. 

The scene of battle now shifted from Ireland to Scotland. 
Here both the government and the royalists, though irrecon- 
cilable in matters of religion, agreed in denouncing the 
execution of Charles I, and supported the claims of his son. 
The Scottish commissioners, however, refused to take up arms 
in behalf of Prince Charles until he should accept the Cove- 
nant and promise to impose Presbyterianism on England. 
During the negotiations, Montrose, hoping to save his prince 
from these conditions, flew to arms. In April, 1650, the 
royalists, led by Montrose, were defeated at Carbisdale, and 
the leader himself was captured and hanged, a gallant martyr 
to the cause of a faithless prince. Charles did not raise a 
finger to save his brave ally, but continued his negotiations 
and accepted the Covenant with as few compunctions as 
he had shown in sacrificing Montrose. Charles possessed 
sagacity and astuteness, but he was indolent and deceitful 
and a consummate actor. He deceived the Scots in order to 



372 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [166C 

win the support, not only of the Scottish Presbyterians, but of 
the Scottish national party as well. 

But the cause of the prince was hopeless. At Dunbar 
(September, 1650), Cromwell defeated David Leslie and 
occupied Edinburgh. The Presbyterians lost ground. In 
their place arose the national party, who crowned Prince 
Charles at Scone (January, 1651), and continued the struggle. 
But at Worcester (September 3, 1651) Cromwell crushed the 
Scottish army, which had audaciously invaded England, and 
in so doing destroyed, not only the hopes of the Scottish royal- 
ists, but the independence of Scotland as well. After many 
romantic adventures, the prince reached the Continent and 
took up his residence first in Paris and afterward in Holland. 
General Monk, entering Scotland, completed the reduction of 
that kingdom. Scotland was united to England, and later the 
Scots found representation in the English parliament. 

While Cromwell was winning victories on land, Blake, with 
the navy, was sweeping royalist privateers from the seas. He 
drove Prince Kupert from Portugal, broke up the royalist 
rendezvous in the Channel and Scilly Islands, and captured the 
Isle of Man. Sir George Ayscue, with another fleet, reduced 
to submission Barbadoes and other islands of the West Indies ; 
and special commissioners sent to America received the alle- 
giance of Virginia and Maryland, both royalist colonies. 

Cromwell's victory at Worcester and the successes of Blake 
not only relieved the republic of danger, but also increased 
immensely its prestige among the foreign powers. 

263. English Commerce and the Dutch War. — Now that Eng- 
land had little to fear from the royalists, Cromwell began to 
shape a definite policy for the government, the most important 
part of which related to commerce and the colonies. The 
expansion of England which had begun under Elizabeth and 
James I had been checked by the civil war ; but in the mean- 
time Holland, freed from war with Spain by the truce of 1608, 
was rapidly becoming the mistress of the world's commerce. 
The Dutch had gained control of the fisheries in the North 



16543 THE FIRST DUTCH WAR. 373 

Sea; they had monopolized the trade in America and the 
West Indies, as well as in the East ; they had gained posses- 
sion of the Baltic trade and were preventing the English 
from obtaining such things as timber, tar, and hemp, which 
were needed for the building up of the English navy. In 
the East they had driven the English out of the Spice Islands 
and had forced them to confine their trade to India and other 
parts of the mainland. England's commercial expansion there- 
fore demanded that the Dutch supremacy be overthrown. 

Cromwell began the attack, first in an ordinance of 1650, 
and afterward in the famous navigation act of 1651,^ which 
provided that no goods of the growth or manufacture of Asia, 
Africa, or America should be imported into England or any 
of her colonies, except in ships owned and manned by English- 
men. This navigation act would have led to war, even had 
other causes been wanting ; for Holland would not give up her 
trade without a struggle, and England was determined to 
enforce the act. But there were other causes for hostility 
between the two countries. The Dutch sympathized with the 
Stuarts, because their stadtholder, William II of Orange, had 
married the daughter of Charles I. An English agent, Dr. 
Dorislaus, had been murdered at The Hague by Scottish royal- 
ists and the murderers had gone unpunished. And lastly, a 
project for a treaty, which England presented to the Dutch 
government, had been rejected.^ 

The war, which broke out in 1652 and lasted till 1653, was 
entirely a naval struggle, with Blake on one side and the Dutch 
Admiral Von Tromp on the other. It injured the Dutch trade 
and led to a serious financial crisis in Holland. Blake won 
three naval victories in 1653, which so discouraged Holland, 
already suffering from the loss of her trade, that she gave up 
the struggle. In April, 1654, a treaty was finally arranged, 
whereby England was to receive compensation for all losses, 
and the claims advanced in the navigation act were tacitly recog- 

1 MacDonald, No. 22, 2 Kendall, No. 86. 



374 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1653 

nized. In the same year a treaty was signed with. Denmark, 
which admitted England to the Baltic, and with Portugal, 
which strengthened England's hold in India. As events were 
to show, the Dutch were far from beaten ; but from 1654 may 
be dated the decline of the commercial supremacy of Holland 
and the beginning of that of England. Cromwell's greatest 
achievement was to give England a prominent place in the 
commercial world.^ 

264. Establishment of the Protectorate. — During these years 
the Rump Parliament and its Council of State had been nomi- 
nally the ruling power, though the real power lay in the hands 
of Cromwell and the army. Cromwell began to grow im- 
patient with the parliament, and charged it with neglecting 
its business, and with spending its time talking instead of 
doing. After many attempts to arrange a compromise, he felt 
that the time had come to act. On April 20, 1653, he entered 
the House, and, after listening to the debate for a few minutes, 
rose and charged the members with delaying public business. 
" You are no parliament," he said ; " I will put an end to your 
sitting." Calling his soldiers to help him, he drove out the 
members, bade one of his followers remove the mace from the 
table, and, passing out, locked the doors behind him.^ The last 
trace of legal form was thus removed and the supremacy of 
the army was revealed. 

What form of government should take the place of the 
Rump Parliament was a question debated for many days by 
Cromwell and the other leading men. Finally they proposed 
a representative assembly of the " godly men " of England, 
the members of which should be nominated by the Congre- 
gational (Independent) churches in each county and these 
nominations confirmed by the officers of the army. This 
strange body, the Nominative Parliament, or, as it was famil- 



1 Kendall, No. 87. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No. 95; Adams and Stephens, No. 218; Colby, No. 
75 ; Kendall. No. 85. 



1654] 



ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PROTECTORATE. 



375 



iarly called, the Barebones Parliament, met on July 4, 1653, at 
Westminster.^ It declared itself a true parliament, elected a 
council of state, appointed committees, and passed a number of 
acts of reform. As might have been expected, however, from a 
body so constituted, the Barebones 
Parliament soon became involved 
in quarrels on religious subjects 
and proved its utter inability to 
govern. Finally the army, thor- 
oughly dissatished with the work 
of the new body, forced its mem- 
bers to disperse ; and thus an un- 
fortunate experiment was brought 
to an end (December, 1653). 

Meanwhile the officers of the 
army had drawn up a new consti- 
tution, which was called the Instru- 
ment of Govei'nment (1653).^ It 
provided for a head, the Protector, 
and for a parliament elected once in 
three years by all men possessing 
property worth £ 200. The powers 
of the Protector and of parliament 
were carefully defined and limited, 
and a council was established to 
act during the months when parlia- 
ment was not in session. The most striking provision of the 
new constitution was the high property qualification, which, 
by limiting the right to vote to the men of moderate wealth, 
showed the army's distrust of the mass Of the people. Crom- 




Old House in Chester. 

The inscription over the balcony 
reads " God's Providence is mine 
Inheritance." This was placed 
there in 1652, in commemora- 
tion of the escape of the house 
from the ravages of a plague. 



1 Gardiner, Documents, No. 96. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No. 97; Adams and Stephens, No. 219; Lee, No. 
167 ; Gee and Hardy, No. CX. The Instrument of Government was not some- 
thing new, but represented an attempt to revert to the constitutional system 
under Elizabeth. It must, therefore, be kept entirely distinct from such a 
scheme as that embodied in the Agreement of the People. 



376 THE STUAETS AND PARLIAMENT. [1654 

well accepted the Instrument of Government in 1654, and 
assumed the title of Protector; and for six years thereafter 
the government of England was a protectorate.^ 

265. Cromwell's Work as Protector. — The ordinances which 
were issued at this time, dealing with the reorganization and 
strengthening of the kingdom, show the Protector to have been 
a statesman of large powers. He completed the union of 
England, Ireland, and Scotland, and worked out the representa- 
tion of each county in the English parliament. ^ He reorgan- 
ized the treasury ; reformed the penal code, by decreasing the 
number of crimes for which a man could be hanged ; attempted 
to reform men's manners, by forbidding duelling, cock-fighting, 
horse-racing, and gambling, and by requiring a more fit observ- 
ance of Sunday ; encouraged free schools, and strengthened 
the universities. That which he did to improve the dispensing 
of justice cannot be too highly praised. Yet nearly all his 
measures, being in advance of the time, were repealed after 
his death and find no place in the statute book of England. 

More important, because more permanent, was his foreign 
policy. By this he sought to accomplish three things : (1) to 
protect and unite the Protestants of Europe; (2) to develop 
English commerce wherever possible; and (3) to thwart all 
attempts of the Stuarts to regain their throne. From one 
purpose he never deviated, — to make England the leader of 
Protestantism and the greatest commercial power in the 
world. In 1654, as we have already seen, he made peace with 
the Dutch on terms which yielded to England the supremacy 
of the sea, and compelled the Hollanders to give up their 

1 In our great admiration for Milton as a poet, we often lose sight of his 
attitude as a politician. He was the champion of the commonwealth and the 
protectorate. His Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, appearing a fortnight 
after the execution of Charles I, shows that he would have voted for the 
king's death had he been a member of the court of justice. His Ready and 
Easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth (1600) shows that he was in 
all respects a man of a party and a great admirer of Cromwell. Kendall, 
No. 84. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No. 98; Adams and Stephens, No. 220. 



1655] CROMWELL'S WORK AS PROTECTOR. 377 

support of the Stuarts, and also made treaties withi Denmark 
and Portugal. In 1655 he tried to arrange a treaty with 
Sweden, hoping to create thereby a league of the Protestant 
states of Northern Europe; and, although he failed in his 
main object, he succeeded in effecting a commercial arrange- 
ment with Sweden which had the important result of ren- 
dering English shipping more secure and extending English 
commerce in the Baltic. 

Cromwell found it difficult to arrange England's relations 
ivith France and Spain. These two Continental powers had 
been at war since 1635, when Eichelieu declared war against 
Spain and took part in the Thirty Years' War as the surest 
way of defeating his enemy. Cromwell was uncertain with 
which of these powers it would be best to make an alliance. 
France was supporting the Stuarts, and Spain was England's 
old-time enemy. In either case, Cromwell was determined to 
obtain advantages for England. Spain refused his demand 
that English merchants in Spanish ports should be free from 
the interference of the Inquisition, and that English colonists 
and traders should trade freely in the Spanish West Indies. 
" This is to ask for my master's two eyes," said the Spanish 
minister. Cromwell sent, therefore, a secret expedition under 
Admiral Penn, William Penn's father, to the West Indies, and 
tried to extend England's colonial empire by annexing Spanish 
islands and cutting off Spanish trade.^ At the same time he 
sent Blake into the Mediterranean to win respect there for the 
English flag. Spain, much irritated, began zealously to cham- 
pion the cause of the Stuarts, and endeavored to stir up civil war 
in England. The expedition sent out under Penn failed in its 
object, only Jamaica being captured. Blake, however, entered 
on a career which is only equalled by that of his great prede- 
cessor, Drake. By a wholesome use of threats and gunpowder, 
he overawed the Deys of Algiers and Tunis, and taught the 



1 See the article by Strong in the American Historical Review, January, 
1899, pp. 228-246, " The Causes of Cromwell's West Indian Expedition." 



378 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1655 

men of the Barbary States to respect England's power. In 1655, 
when Spain, thoroughly aroused, actually declared war against 
England, Blake captured a Spanish treasure-fleet, and sent to 
England over £600,000 in gold and silver. Shortly afterward 
he destroyed sixteen Spanish galleons in the harbor of Cadiz. 

These events made inevitable an alliance between England 
and France, and on March 23, 1657, a treaty was signed. 
Prince Charles had already left France, in 1654, but now his 
friends also were forced to withdraw. As a preliminary to 
the treaty, Cromwell demanded of the French minister, 
Mazarin, that he compel the duke of Savoy to stop the slaughter 
of the Protestants of Piedmont, which had aroused the indig-^ 
nation of the English Protestants, and had called forth from 
Milton one of his finest sonnets. Cromwell fulfilled his part 
of the treaty, and on June 4, 1658, helped the French to win a 
victory at Dunkirk, whereby the Spanish were beaten, the 
cause of Prince Charles was rendered hopeless so far as aid 
from Spain was concerned, and Dunkirk was handed over to 
the English. 

The results of this policy may be briefly stated. Cromwell 
failed in his attempt to create a great Protestant league, 
because the day for such a league had gone by. The religious 
wars were over, and political questions were interesting men's 
minds. He cannot be said to have shown great foresight in 
making an alliance with France against Spain, for he aided 
thereby a growing state that was destined to be the great- 
est of England's rivals in the years to come. In his commer- 
cial and colonial policy he accomplished his grandest work ; 
for by making treaties of commerce, breaking the commercial 
supremacy of the Dutch, winning a foothold in Jamaica in the 
West Indies, and endeavoring to colonize that island by trans- 
porting thither emigrants from the New England colonies,^ 
he laid the foundations, not only for England's leadership in 



1 See Strong in Report of the American Historical Association, 1898, pp. 79- 
94, " A Forgotten Danger to the New England Colonies " ; Kendall No. 88. 



1655] CROMWELL'S EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT. 379 

commerce, but also for her great colonial empire. Charles II, 
when he came to the throne, set aside the great majority of 
Cromwell's measures, but he did not tamper with his colonial 
schemes, knowing that they represented the wishes and inter- 
ests of the English people. 

266. Cromwell's Experiments in Government (1654-1658). — 
Cromwell tried a great many ways of governing England, but 
he did not succeed very well with any of them. He got rid of 
the Rump Parliament in 1653, and substituted for it the Bare- 
bones Parliament in the same year. But that experiment 
failed, and he accepted a constitution in 1653, the Instrument 
of Government, and tried to work with a parliament elected 
under the provisions of that constitution. But this parliament, 
composed mostly of Presbyterians and moderate Independents, 
insisted on amending the constitution ; whereas Cromwell felt 
that it was their business, not to waste time talking about a new 
constitution, but to govern England as well as possible with the 
constitution they already possessed. The time was critical, 
because the Levellers, or extreme republicans, were ready to 
combine with the royalists in overthrowing the protectorate. 
Therefore, in January, 1655, Cromwell dismissed parliament,^ 
and until September, 1656, governed without it, but in strict 
accord with the constitution. He overthrew one leveller insur- 
rection in February, 1655, and two royalist movements in 
March of the same year. 

For greater security he divided England into twelve military 
districts, and in November, 1655, placed each under the charge 
of a major-general. It was the duty of these men (1) to 
prevent uprisings, disarm Roman Catholics, and seize weapons ; 
(2) to levy a tax on the lands of royalists; (3) to stop 
horse-racing and gambling, and to check swearing and drunken- 
ness ; (4) to execute the poor laws and compel the idle to work ; 
(5) to register all householders, and to know what every sus- 
pected person was doing; (6) and to license taverns and ale- 



1 See Lee, No. 168. 



380 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1657 

houses.* The system proved very efficient, but was hated by 
the English people, because it represented the rule of the army. 
In fact, before the rule of the major-generals was half over, 
England was ready to return to constitutional government, and 
the cause of monarchy found many new supporters. 

Need of money compelled Cromwell to call another parlia- 
ment, September 17, 1656; and in return for a grant of supplies 
he consented to abolish the office of the major-generals. Taking 
advantage of this opportunity, certain merchants and lawyers, 
opponents of the army, succeeded in passing a bill, asking 
Cromwell to accept a new constitution and to assume the name 
and office of king.^ This request was embodied in what is 
known as the Humble Petition and Advice.^ Cromwell rejected 
the royal title, but accepted the new constitution, and in so 
doing helped to bring England back to the form of government 
which she had had before 1649. Between 1649 and 1657 
England had been governed by a legislative body consisting of 
only one chamber ; but the new scheme provided for two — an 
upper and a lower house. In forming the upper house, Crom- 
well called about forty of his chief supporters from the lower 
house, and so weakened his party there as to throw the control 
of affairs into the hands of his leading republican opponents. 
The two houses came at once into conflict over the question as 
to whether or not the upper house should be called a House of 
Lords ; and Cromwell, growing angry because of the dispute, put 
an end to the parliament, on February 4, 1658. " Let God be 
judge between you and me," he said, and the defiant republicans 
responded, "Amen." 

This was the last of the Protector's experiments in constitu- 
tional government. Had he lived, he undoubtedly would have 
persevered in the attempt to establish a stable government. 
But his end was near. On September 3, 1658, the anniversary 



1 Rannie, " Cromwell's Major Generals," E. H. R., 1895, p. 471. 

2 Firth, " Cromwell and the Crown," E. H. R., June, 1902 pp. 429-442. 
8 Gardiner, Documents, No. 102 ; Gee and Hardy, No. CXIII. 



1659] THE RESTORATION OF THE STUARTS. 381 

of Dunbar and Worcester, he died, worn out with anxiety, care, 
and family affliction.^ 

267. Cromwell's Place in History. — The work of Cromwell 
was finished. By his genius as a soldier, he had checked the 
absolutism of the Stuarts and had brought England, a compact 
and united state, out of the dangers of the civil war. By his 
vigor as a statesman, he had raised England's prestige abroad 
and had prepared the way for the greater England that was 
to come. At home he had fought for liberty of conscience, had 
set before the* people a high standard of morals and justice, 
and had effected a union of Scotland and Ireland with England. 
In these three particulars his ideals found little support in the 
reaction that followed, though they were destined to become 
in the end a part of England's inheritance. 

But Cromwell cannot be called a great statesman, because 
he did not consistently plan for the future, and because he did 
not adapt his government to the wishes of the people of all 
England. He believed that power should lie in the hands of 
the " godly men," whose duty it was to rule for the good of 
the people. He was, therefore, always the leader of a 
minority, never of England as a whole. His experiments 
in constitutional government were a failure, because they 
were made in the interest of the Puritan party and never 
of the nation. When, therefore, after his death, the people 
had an opportunity of expressing their opinion in the elec- 
tion of a parliament, they voted for the overthrow of the 
system of government that he had tried so carefully to 
establish. 

268. The Restoration of the Stuarts. — Cromwell's eldest son, 
Eichard, succeeded his father as Protector.^ But he was wholly 
incompetent to meet the difficult situation ; and in May, 
1659, the army officers united with the extreme republicans 

1 For extracts illustrating Cromwell's traits, speeches, etc., see Henderson's 
Side Lights, Groups XII, XIII, pp. 93-115 ; also Kendall, No, 89, 

2 Lee. No. 170. 



382 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1660 

and forced him to abdicate. In the same month the soldiers 
restored the Rump Pafliament, the only body that seemed to 
possess any constitutional character. But this body at once 
came into conflict with the army that restored it, and the con- 
fusion became so great that no one knew where to turn for 
safety and the preservation of order. In December, General 
Monk,^ who commanded the army in Scotland, took matters 
into his own hands, and having marched to London, forced the 
Rump Parliament to admit again the Presbyterian members 
whom Pride had driven out in 1648. He then' demanded that 
this restored parliament should vote its own dissolution and 
issue writs for the summoning of a convention, the members 
of which were to be fairly and freely elected by all who had 
the right to vote. Thus Monk not only saved England from 
anarchy and possibly a third civil war, but he made it possible 
for the kingdom to return peaceably to constitutional govern- 
ment. 

Each step thus far taken since 1657 had brought England 
nearer the constitutional system rejected in 1649, and only the 
monarchy and the Stuarts needed to be restored to make the 
old system, to all outward appearances, complete. With Prince 
Charles, Monk was already negotiating; for he knew, as the 
majority of Englishmen knew, that the return of Charles as 
king of England was now inevitable. In a declaration issued 
from Breda,^ April 4, 1660, Charles promised pardon, liberty 
of conscience, and freedom from all confiscation of property ; 
and in May the Convention, which had been duly elected, 
invited him to return to England. On May 25, 1660, Charles 
landed at Dover and immediately entered on his reign .^ To 
all appearances England was accepting once more the system 
of government that had been established by the Long Parlia- 
ment in 1641. 

1 Rightly, this name should be spelled Monck. 

2 Gardiner, Documents, No. 105 ; Gee and Hardy, No. CXIV; Adams and 
Stephens, No. 221 ; Lee, Nos. 171, 172, 173, 174. 

3 Henderson, Side Lights, Group XIV, pp. 115-124; Kendall, No. 90. 



i 



1660] CHARACTER OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 383 



269. Character of the Reign of Charles II. — Though Charles 
was now king of England, his position was very different 
from that occupied by his father and grandfather. He had 
been placed on the throne by the nation, not by a party ; and 
during the twenty years preceding his accession the nation 
had learned many lessons regarding kings. It was evident 
that the English people 
would no longer tolerate a 
personal rule, or levies of 
ship money and other ar- 
bitrary measures. The 
middle classes — merchants, 
lawyers, inhabitants of 
towns and boroughs — had 
taken part in a successful 
revolution. They had 
measured their strength 
with a king in civil war, 
and had made experiments 
in the drafting of constitu- 
tions that had taught them 
many lessons as to what 
they could and could not 
do. Voluntarily they had 
called a Stuart to rule over 
them ; but they were determined that he should reign in no 
other way than according to the constitution as it had been 
shaped by the important reforms of 1641. 

In fact, the revolution had not yet ended, for the ques- 
tion as to whether the sovereign power lay in the king or 
in the representatives of the nation had not been settledo The 
people had been frightened by the despotic rule of Cromwell's 
army, by the anarchy in government that followed Cromwell's 
death, and by the apparent overthrow of the old constitution. 
To escape anarchy, they welcomed Charles II as their king ; 
but should he prove to be as blind and obstinate as his father 




Charles II. 
From a photograph of a 
painting by Mrs. Beals. 



384 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1660 

had been, tliey were prepared to depose him also. The restora. 
tion, therefore, represents only a compromise, and the entire 
reign of Charles II was politically only an experiment made to 
prove whether or not a Stuart could be a constitutional king. 
By tact and shrewdness Charles II was able to play off one 
party against another and to keep his throne. The second 
revolution did not take place until a second restored Stuart, 
James II, by blindly and obstinately disregarding the law of 
the constitution and the wishes of the nation, made a con- 
tinuation of the struggle inevitable. 

270. The Convention and its Work. — Before Charles was 
called back to England, a Convention, composed of the moderate 
men of all parties, had attempted to set in order the political 
and religious affairs of the nation. It invited Charles II to 
return, thus restoring the monarchy; it disbanded the army of 
the commonwealth, thus getting rid of a body that had threat- 
ened to become an instrument of tyranny; and it proclaimed a 
general pardon, except for the judges who had condemned 
Charles I. But it showed its spirit of reaction and revenge 
by putting to death thirteen of the judges, and by ordering the 
bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw to be torn from their 
graves in Westminster Abbey and hanged at Tyburn. 

Exceedingly difficult to settle were the questions relating to 
land, the revenues, and the church. The Convention tried to 
restore to their former owners the estates that had been seized 
by the revolutionary government. It returned to the king the 
lands of the crown, and gave back to the church and the royal- 
ists such lands as they had not sold of their own accord. It 
performed its greatest act when it abolished feudal tenures, for 
thereafter every man held his land by what was known as 
"socage" tenure, that is, by an oath of fealty and the payment 
of a fixed rent.^ This new system did away with all feudal 
incidents, aids, and obligations, and contributed more to 
England's progress than did any other act of the period. At 

i Adams and Stephens, No. 222. 



1661] 



THE CAVALIER PARLIAMENT. 385 



the same time it lessened the king's revenue ; and to make up 
for this loss, the Convention granted to the king the revenues 
accruing from a tax on beer. It fixed his yearly income at 
£1,200,000, which would hardly have met the expenses of both 
the king and his government, even if it had all been collected. 
But owing to the fact that the country was exhausted by the 
long struggle and by Cromwell's expensive policy, and could not 
pay the taxes, Charles received not even half of what parliament 
intended he should. 

The Convention found it impossible to settle the church 
question. An attempt was made to effect a sort of compromise 
between the Episcopal and Presbyterian systems, but nothing 
came of it; for Charles, in December, 1660, dissolved the Con- 
vention, before it had completed its work. Writs were then 
issued summoning a regular parliament. 

271. The Reaction : Election of the Cavalier Parliament. — 
The new parliament, though to the king's liking, was in fact 
more royalist than was the king himself. For the most part, 
Charles was inclined to be tolerant. In April, 1661, he author- 
ized the Anglicans and Presbyterians to hold a meeting at the 
Savoy Palace, with the object of reaching a satisfactory settle- 
ment of the religious question ; but the conference accomplished 
nothing."^ The Cavalier Parliament was less anxious than the 
king for a compromise. Scarcely had it met when it made a 
savage attack on the Puritans and their religion. In Decem- 
ber, 1661, it began its double work of persecuting the Non- 
conformists and of reestablishing the Anglican church. 

By the Corporation Act ^ (May, 1661), all persons holding 
office in the towns — where the Puritans were most numer- 
ous—were required to renounce the Solemn League and 
Covenant, to declare that opposition to the king was treason, 
and to take the sacrament according to the rites of the Angli- 
can church. In May, 1662, the Uniformity Act, the last in 



1 Gee and Hardy, No. CXV. 

2 Gee and Hardy, No. CXVI; Adams and Stephens, No. 223. 



386 



IHE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1670 



English history, required every clergyman to use the prayer- 
book, under penalty of losing his position.^ Two years after- 
ward the Conventicle Act,^ which was passed again in 1670,^ 
forbade all meeting for purposes of worship under any other 
form than that prescribed by the church of England. And in 
1665, parliament completed its work by the passage of the 
Five Mile Act,^ which forbade all clergymen who had not 
obeyed the Act of Uniformity — and there were some two 
thousand who had not done so — to come within five miles of 

any city or corporate town. 

These acts, which were ac- 
companied with others of a 
similar character for Scotland, 
were largely the work of the 
chief adviser of the king, Sir 
Edward Hyde, Earl of Claren- 
don, who made it his object to 
effect the restoration of the 
Anglican church, to complete 
the work of Archbishop Laud, 
and to suppress all that re- 
mained of Puritanism. On 
this account, these various 
measures have sometimes been 
called the Clarendon Code. 

But the reaction was not 
limited to matters of religion. 
During the reign of Charles II there was generally prevalent 
a desire to reverse all that had been done during the period of 
the Puritan supremacy, and to break away from the soberness 
and gloom of the Puritan epoch.^ Men and women became 




Edward Hyde, Earl of 
Clarendon. 



1 Gee and Hardy, No. CXVII ; Adams and Stephens, No. 224. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 225. 3 Gee and Hardy, No. CXIX. 

4 Gee and Hardy, No.CXVIH ; Adams and Stephens, No. 226 ; Kendall, No. 92. 

5 For extracts illustrating the festivities accompanying the return of the 
king, see Henderson's Side Lights, group XIV, pp. 115-124; Colby, No. 77. 



1664] THE SECOND DUTCH WAR. 387 

gay aud pleasure-loving. Taking their cue from the fashions 
of the French court, where many had lived during the exile, 
they changed their books, their dress, their manners, and their 
speech. At court and in society French customs prevailed; 
vice and profligacy increased ; scepticism became fashionable ; 
gambling, card-playing, and drinking became habits of every- 
day life. Yet, at the same time, it must be remembered that 
among the mass of the people in towns and country sobriety 
and right living prevailed. 

272. Conflict between Parliament and the King. — However 
eager the members of the Cavalier Parliament may have been 
to persecute the Puritans, they were none the less determined 
to retain all political advantages their predecessors had won 
in the great revolution, and to exercise the parliamentary privi- 
lege of criticising the king's policy and of controlling the 
king's actionSo Certain events that occurred after 1662 had 
made them suspicious of the king and had led them to doubt 
his loyalty to England. 

In the first place, parliament did not look with favor on the 
king's marriage, in 1662, with Catherine of Braganza, a Portu- 
guese princess, because it seemed to bind the king to the 
policy of Louis XIV, who was friendly to Portugal and hostile 
to Spain. Parliament thought that this marriage foreshad- 
owed an alliance with France, It was angry when Charles 
sold Dunkirk to the French king in the same year, and saw 
with distrust the extravagances of the king's court and the 
profligate character of his life. It believed that Charles was 
conniving at the bribery of his officials by France and was 
spending on his mistresses all the money that he received. 

In the second place, parliament blamed Charles and his 
advisers for the mismanagement of the Dutch war of 1665, 
which began auspiciously, but which brought in the end much 
trouble and humiliation to England. 

273. The Dutch War. — Though Cromwell had crippled the 
commerce of Holland, the Dutch still remained the great rivals 
of England and competed with her in India, Africa, and 



388 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1664 

America. All England seems to have desired war with Hol- 
land: parliament, because of the constant complaints that 
were heard of Dutch encroachments ; the nation, because of 
its jealousy of a successful rival ; and Charles II, because he 
wished to do anything that would strengthen England's com- 
merce and colonies and so increase his customs duties, and 
because the Dutch had rejected as stadtholder his nephew, 
William of Orange, selecting as their head a commoner, Jan 
de Witt. 

England, eager to strike the first blow, attacked, in 1664, 
the Dutch colonists, both at Cape Yerd in Africa, and at New 
Amsterdam in America, where was situated a Dutch settlement 
separating the English settlements in New England from those 
in Maryland and Virginia. A little later in the same year, 
war was formally declared. The Dutch were promised help 
by Louis XIV, who wished to see the two Protestant powers 
fighting each other instead of uniting to oppose his own plans. 
For two years the war continued. The English won a victory 
at Harwich, but the Dutch showed unexpected staying power 
and won in a great battle, fought off the Downs in 1666. 

This defeat for the English was accompanied with other 
disasters not connected with the war. In the same year 
London was visited with a great plague and a great fire, both 
of which caused extraordinary loss and confusion.^ Moreover, 
the war was making havoc in the administration of the navy. 
Inasmuch as money could not be obtained, seamen were unpaid 
and mutinous, shipbuilders held back completed vessels, re- 
pairs were left undone, food was left unfurnished; and finally 
the supply of men gave out entirely. The Dutch, taking 
advantage of these deplorable conditions, sent a fleet up the 
Thames. It entered the Medway, burnt the English ships, 
and blockaded London.^ This humiliating incident led to an 
early peace, and in July, 1667, the treaty of Breda was signed. 



1 Henderson, Side Lights, Groups XV, XVI, pp. 124-142; Colby, No. 78; 
Kendall, No. 93. 2 Kendall, No. 94. 



1667] FINANCIAL POSITION OF CHARLES II. 389 

Holland herself, divided into factions and alarmed by the 
grasping policy of Louis XIV, made favorable terms with 
England, and gave her the Dutch colony in America in return 
for undisputed possession of the Spice Islands. 

274. Fall of Clarendon. — Both parliament and people blamed 
Clarendon for the bad management of the war. Since 1660 
he had been the chief man of the realm ; but he had not under- 
stood the new temper of the English people, and in becoming 
lord chancellor had not realized how much England had 
changed since the days when he had sat as Edward Hyde in 
the Long Parliament. Parliament held him responsible for 
the sale of Dunkirk, for the burning of the English ships in the 
Med way, and, in general, for bad government and the misuse 
of funds. Charles II did nothing to save his minister ; for 
he did not like Clarendon's stern uprightness, and was rather 
glad than otherwise to be rid of a minister who criticised his 
immoral life and had no sympathy with his desire to tolerate 
Roman Catholics and Dissenters. In 1667 Charles dismissed 
Clarendon, and in the same year parliament impeached him 
and banished him from England. 

275. Financial Position of Charles II : Intrigues with France, — 
Clarendon was overthrown chiefly because of the wretched 
financial condition into which England had fallen. The Dutch 
war had shown that there was not enough money in the treas- 
ury to run the kingdom. It is commonly said that Charles II 
misappropriated the money that parliament allowed him and 
spent it on favorites and mistresses, but the accusation has 
not been made good. In truth, Charles and his treasurer, the 
upright Southampton, did not have money enough to pay 
the regular expenses, because the sums voted by parliament 
could not be collected, and the receipts never actually equalled 
the amount, small enough at best, that parliament was willing 
to allow the king.^ The king had to make up the deficit in 



1 Shaw, in The Owens College Historical Essays, ** The Beginning of the 
National Debt," pp. 400-401. 



390 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1667 

various ways. He turned into the treasury the dowry which 
his Portuguese wife brought him, as well as the money received 
from the sale of Dunkirk. He sold the crown lands and tried 
to help with the funds received. He borrowed money of private 
persons and of the goldsmiths, the bankers of that day, promis- 
ing to pay when the supplies granted by parliament came in. 
But all these devices proved of very little avail. 

A new way out of the difficulty soon opened. When the 
war with Holland was over, the English people realized, as 
they had never done before, that Louis XIV was the great 
enemy of Protestant Europe. In the "war of devolution,'' 

1667, he attempted to annex the Netherlands, and in so doing 
disclosed the first part of his plan to increase the territory of 
France at the expense of his neighbors. Parliament, aroused 
by this danger, sent Sir William Temple to Holland to arrange 
an alliance against France. In consequence, a triple alliance 
of England, Holland, and Sweden was formed, and so menac- 
ing did the combination appear to the French king that he at 
once took steps to destroy it. In order to quiet the suspicions 
of his enemies, he concluded the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 

1668, and at once began secret' negotiations, first with Sweden 
and afterward with England. 

Charles was willing to treat with Louis, (1) because Eng- 
land's rivalry with Holland was as keen after the treaty of 
Breda as before; (2) because he himself secretly sympathized 
with Koman Catholicism and wished to bring England into 
close touch with the Catholic countries of the Continent; and 
(3) because he and his treasurer .had been unable to meet 
the deficit in the treasury. Commercial, religious, and finan- 
cial reasons underlay these unpatriotic and secret negotiations 
with Louis XIV, which ended in the secret treaty of Dover, 
June 1, 1670. In return for a cash payment of £200,000, 
and more in the event of actual war, Charles promised to aid 
Louis against the Dutch and to acknowledge himself a Roman 
Catholic. The financial bankruptcy of England must be held 
in part responsible for this disgraceful treaty. 



I 



ii 



1672] CHARLES II — PERIOD OF THE CABAL. 391 

276. Period of the Cabal : the King's Policy of Alliance with 
France abroad and Toleration at Home. — After the fall of Clar- 
endon, the king gave his confidence to no one in particular ; 
but out of the whole body of his privy councillors he consulted, 
more frequently than others, five men, of whom the most im- 
portant was Anthony Ashley Cooper, at first known as Lord 
Ashley and afterward as the Earl of Shaftesbury.^ These men 
in no way formed a ministry or cabinet in the modern sense of 
the word, and legally were in no way responsible to parlia- 
ment ; but they foreshadowed the modern ministry, and, as it 
happened, were later held responsible by parliament for bad 
advice and bad government, just as Clarendon had been. 

Charles adhered to the policy adopted when he signed the 
secret treaty with France. In 1672 he was forced to declare 
the bankruptcy of the state, in what is known as the Stop of 
the Exchequer, and refused to pay the loans of the goldsmiths 
and of private individuals, because the treasury was empty .^ 
But his need of money did not prevent him from carrying out 
his part of the French treaty by declaring war on the Dutch, 
a war in which " the nations fought without being angry." At 
the same time, he pursued his policy of toleration by issuing a 
declaration of indulgence, releasing non-conformists, Roman 
Catholics and Dissenters alike, from the operation of the 
Clarendon Code.^ 

But parliament was growing suspicious. It saw with con- 

1 These men were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauder- 
dale. The term Cabal was given to them because their initials happened to 
form that word. 

2 Charles II was accustomed, as Cromwell had been, to borrow of the gold- 
smiths, paying eight per cent interest. But in 1672 " the king, who then owed 
the goldsmiths £1,328,526, announced that the sum would not be repaid, but 
that his creditors would have to be satisfied with the interest. Even this 
crumb of consolation was denied till 1677, when six per cent was paid. 
Payment stopped again in 1683 ; but in 1701 it was arranged that three per 
cent should be paid. Later still, the South Sea Company took over the debt, 
and on the failure of that body the sum was included in the National Debt, 
of which indeed it formed the nucleus." — Warner, Landmarks, p. 238. 

s Adams and Stephens, No. 227. 



392 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1674 

cern that France, rather than England, was profiting from the 
war with Holland ; and that Roman Catholics had been chiefly 
considered in the Act of Indulgence. Thoroughly distrustful, 
therefore, of both the king and his advisers, it compelled 
Charles to withdraw the Act of Indulgence in 1673, and in 
the same year passed the Test Act, which declared that all 
who held office under the crown should receive the sacrament 
according to the rites of the Anglican church.* In passing 
the act, parliament rebuked the king, and caused all Roman 
Catholics to withdraw from office. The king's brother, James, 
Duke of York, resigned the office of high admiral, and 
Clifford withdrew from the treasury. Furthermore, the war 
with the Dutch became increasingly unpopular, as the people 
realized that England was being made a mere cat's-paw by 
France. Anthony Ashley Cooper, who had been created earl 
of Shaftesbury in 1672, was dismissed from office ; and in 1674 
the war was brought to an end. 

277. The King and the Parties. — The year 1674 marks a 
turning-point in the relations between king and parliament. 
Charles had been checkmated in his attempts to carry out his 
own policy of alliance with France and indulgence for Roman 
Catholics, a policy not to be taken up again until the duke of 
York came to the throne as James II. The king was too good 
a politician not to yield at so dangerous a crisis ; and for the 
next few years he was content to play off one party in parlia- 
ment against the other. Shaftesbury, after his dismissal from 
office, had become the leader of the opposition, consisting 
chiefly of Dissenters, who believed it was lawful for parlia- 
ment to compel the king to do as they and the people thought 
right. Opposed to Shaftesbury was the man whom Charles 
selected as his adviser, the earl of Danby, who belonged to 
the school of Clarendon. Danby supported the king and the 
established church, and believed that the king's power was 
from God alone. 

1 Gee and Hardy, No, OXX ; Adams and Stephens, No. 228. Compare 
Kendall, No. 96. 



1«79] CHARLES II— THE EXCLUSION BILL. 393 

in the struggle that followed, Shaftesbury and his party 
were at first successful, for they had the support of the nation. 
The English people had become alarmed by the victories of 
Louis XIV in Holland and the discovery that a great many 
Roman Catholics had held office in the government. Moreover, 
they were displeased that the duke of York should have 
married, in 1673, as his second wife a Catholic princess, Mary 
of Modena, and, in fact, were in a "state of mind to be easily 
influenced by Shaftesbury's inflammatory speeches. 

Again Charles yielded. In 1677 he consented to the mar- 
riage of his niece, Mary, daughter of the duke of York by his 
first wife, to William of Orange, who was now stadtholder of 
Orange and the leader of the opposition to Louis XIV in 
Europe. Charles was even himself persuaded to take up arms 
against Louis, an act which angered the French king. In 
order to bring about the fall of Danby, who, he believed, was 
the chief cause of the king's change of mind, Louis sent to 
parliament a letter that Danby had written to the French 
court, asking for new subsidies. The plan succeeded. Though 
Danby was opposed to the French alliance and declared that 
he had written only at the king's bidding, parliament im- 
peached him. In so doing it demonstrated the fact that a 
minister, no matter what private views he may hold, could be 
held responsible for the king s policy. Charles, however, 
saved Danby for the moment by dissolving parliament, a body 
which had sat continuously from 1661 to 1679. 

278. Shaftesbury and the Roman Catholics: The Exclusion 
Bill. — Shaftesbury's success was to prove his ruin. The period 
from 1679 to 1681 was one of great uneasiness and unrest. 
Almost a panic was caused by the stories of one Titus Oates, 
who at this time came forward with a carefully prepared tale 
that a great Eoman Catholic conspiracy was on foot to murder 
the king and make England a Catholic kingdom.' Many Roman 
Catholics were executed on the flimsiest of pretexts; Protes- 

1 Figgis, Part I, pp. 62-72. 



394 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1679 

tants became hysterical ; and the nation began to fear a union 
of the Stuarts with Catholic France for the purpose of over- 
throwing the liberties of England. 

Charles, attempting to allay the excitement, summoned a new 
parliament (March, 1679). But that body at once renewed its 
impeachment of Danby; and, despite his plea of a pardon 
from the king, sent him to the Tower. ^ Then the opposition, 
led by Lord William Eussell in the House of Commons and 
Shaftesbury in the Lords, directed the attack against the duke 
of York, an avowed Eoman Catholic, in order to prevent his 
succession to the throne. To this end an exclusion bilP was 
drafted, but Charles prevented its passage by dissolving parlia- 
ment. Another parliament was elected (October, 1679), but 
the king refused to summon it. The nation was dividing into 
two great parties, whose struggles were to constitute party his- 
tory in later times. Those who wished to exclude the duke of 
York from the succession and petitioned the king to summon 
parliament that an exclusion bill might be passed, were called 
the petitioners, or Whigs ; those who believed in the doctrine of 
the divine right of kings and the right of the duke of York to 
succeed, were the Abhorrers, because they expressed their 
abhorrence of the attempt to coerce the king and to exclude 
the duke, and they were nicknamed Tories.^ Shaftesbury, the 
leader of the Whigs, weakened his cause by bringing forward 
the duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles, as 
the king's successor, and by denying the claims of Mary, the 
daughter of James, who, as a Protestant and the wife of 
William of Orange, was popular with the nation. 

279. Reaction in Favor of the King. — Shaftesbury and his 
party had gone too far. Just as, two years before, the people 
had feared a Catholic conspiracy, so now they began to fear a 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 229. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 230; Kendall, No. 96; Figgis, Part I, pp. 78-86. 
8 The terms Whig and Tory were nicknames ; the former from Whigga- 

more, a Scottish Presbyterian ; the latter from a term given to a class of Irish 
bog-trotters, or outlaws, who were Roman Catholic*. 



I 

1 



1683] THE RYE HOUSE PLOT. 395 

return to the anarchy of the Puritan revolution. In 1680 the 
House of Lords rejected the Exclusion Bill and the Whig lead- 
ers became desperate. They came to the parliament of 1681, 
armed, and in so doing were guilty of a breach of the law. By 
dissension among themselves and by their extreme measures 
they weakened their cause. Charles saw his opportunity and 
quickly took advantage of it. He upheld the cause of his brother, 
the duke of York, refused to consider for a moment the claims 
of the duke of Monmouth, and when the opposition became 
violent, dissolved his parliament and refused to call another. 

The king was supported by all Roman Catholics, all uphold- 
ers of the Anglican church, and great numbers of fair-minded 
men who disliked Shaftesbury's methods. Aided by powerful 
allies and subsidized by gold from France, the king and his 
advisers were able to take their revenge. Shaftesbury was 
driven from England ; the city of London, which had been his 
stronghold, was deprived of its charter ; and other centres of 
the Dissenters and Whigs were similarly punished. In 1683, 
when a body of desperate men formed the Rye House plot^ to 
assassinate the king and his brother, the government meted 
out a heavy penalty. Lord William Russell and Sir Alger- 
non Sydney were seized, tried, and executed for high treason, 
on the ground that they had conspired to assassinate the king 
and to raise a rebellion within the kingdom.^ 

Thus a clever manipulation of parties, together with the 
violent measures and dissensions of his opponents, gave the 
victory to the king. Meanwhile, however, England had 



1 Figgis, Part I, pp. 93-95. 

2 Figgis, Part I, pp. 96-100. Sydney won a martyr's crown at the hand of 
the infamous Judge Jeffreys, not so much for connection with the plot, of 
which probably neither he nor Russell knew anything, but because of the 
work that he had written against the doctrine of divine right. Filmer, in 
Patriarcha, and Hobbes, in The Leviathan, had upheld the Stuart doctrines ; 
Sydney, in his Discourses on Government, a reply to Filmer, but in 1683 
existing only in manuscript, declared his belief in the sovereignty of the 
people, and, by implication at least, approved of the execution of Charles L 
For this belief he suffered. 



396 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1685 

learned some lessons from tlie shrewd and tactful Charles, 
by which all profited in the next reign. In 16§5 Charles died,^ 
and was succeeded by his brother as James II. 

280. The Colonies under Charles II. — While this matter of 
government and parties was being worked out at home, Eng- 
land, was making great strides in the world of commerce 
abroad. The Stuarts, whatever may have been their views on 
government, had definite ideas regarding the growth of Eng- 
land's colonies and commerce ; for they saw in both of these an 
opportunity to increase the revenues of the crown. By his 
marriage with Catherine of Braganza, Charles had gained both 
Tangier and Bombay. The former acquisition was England's, 
first vantage point in Africa; the latter her first foothold in India. 
In 1663, by the grant of Carolina to Clarendon and others, he 
had established a new colony in America. In 1662 and 1663 
he had transformed the colonies of Connecticut and Rhode 
Island into corporations, by charters that gave these colonies 
legal recognition and a true land title. In 1 664 he had granted 
to his brother the province of New Netherland, the region 
between New England and Maryland, and at the conclusion of 
the war with the Dutch, had obtained a confirmation of Eng- 
land's title to the territory. In the same year the duke of 
York granted to Berkeley and Carteret that portion later 
known as ]Sre\^ Jersey. Finally, in 1681, almost at the close 
of the reign, Charles completed a splendid work of colonial 
expansion by granting to William Penn the province of Penn- 
sylvania. This territory was given to Penn in honor of his 
father. Admiral Penn, and in recognition of a loan of £11,000 
which the admiral had made to the king and the latter had 
been compelled to repudiate in the Stop of the Exchequer. 
Thus before the close of the reign of Charles II there existed 
nine colonial settlements on the continent of America, forming 



1 For the court life under Charles, for personal traits of the king, and for 
an account of his death, see Henderson, Side Lights, Group XVII, pp. 142- 
157 ; Figgis, Part I, pp. 100-107. 



1672] COLONIES AND COMMERCE UNDER CHARLES IL 397 

a continuous seaboard along the Atlantic coast. Barbadoes, 
Jamaica, Bahamas, and a number of smaller islands in the West 
Indies were already in English hands. In Africa a few places 
were controlled by the English, while in India a beginning of 
occupation had been made at Bombay. 

281. Trade and Commerce. — Hitherto few attempts had been 
made to deal adequately with questions of plantations and 
trade. James I had appointed a committee for the purpose, 
and Cromwell had done the same. But it was left for Charles 
and Clarendon to inaugurate a more efficient policy, on the 
ground that commerce increased the customs revenues of the 
crown. Under Clarendon's influence, parliament in 1660 and 
1663 passed what are known as the first and second navigation 
acts. It was the purpose of these acts (1) to promote Eng- 
lish shipping by taking from the Dutch their monopoly of 
the carrying trade, a policy which had already been adopted 
in Cromwell's navigation act of 1651; and (2) to increase 
England's customs revenues and to benefit her merchants 
by requiring that certain commodities from the colonies must 
first be brought to England before being carried elsewhere, 
and that all goods taken from other countries to the colo- 
nies must first pass through English ports. A third act, 
in 1672, extended these provisions somewhat. At the same 
time various commissions and committees were appointed 
for the purpose of dealing with all questions of trade and 
the colonies. 

By these means England entered upon a new career as a 
commercial and colonial power. Her revenues increased, her 
shipping was extended, her colonies became her source of 
supply for those raw materials that she could not produce at 
home. Her manufactures, -notably of woollen cloth, increased 
rapidly, and were sent over to her colonies in exchange for 
the raw materials that the colonies were encouraged to send 
to* her.^ 



1 See Colby, No. 80. 



398 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1685 

282. Constitutional and Legal Progress. — The reign of 
Charles II is noteworthy as an era of important advances in 
constitutional and legal matters. The king had ceased to be 
absolute, and the arbitrary imposition of taxes was at an end. 
Feudal tenures had been abolished. The House of Commons 
was holding the king's ministers responsible for the king's 
acts, and was already inquiring into the way in which the king 
was spending the money granted him. The beginnings of 
cabinet government can faintly be seen. High commissions 
and star chambers were institutions of the past; jury trial 
was thenceforth free and little liable to interference from either 
king or nobility ; and most important of all, a Habeas Corpus 
Act had been passed (1679), which declared that no man should 
be kept in prison for an indefinite length of time without a 
trial.^ This act provided that every man charged with an 
offence should be tried at the first opportunity. 

283. James II. — James II was a far abler man than his 
iK'other, the late king, and had he been possessed of a little of 
r.lie latter's shrewdness and tact, might have succeeded well as 
;i ruler. He was persistent and industrious, loyal to his word 
;iiid his friends. He had had considerable experience with 
matters of business and government, having been head of the 
admiralty till 1673, and regent in Scotland during the last 
years of his brother's reign. But like his father, he was 
narrow-minded and intolerant, obstinate and merciless, and 
always failed to understand the sentiments of his people 
until he had gone too far in his course to withdraw. While 
Charles II had been able not only to steer his way safely for 
twenty-five years, but even to prove himself in the end a 
stronger king than he had been at his accession, James 
succeeded in bringing matters to a crisis after a reign of less 
than three years.^ 

His failure is the more remarkable, inasmuch as he became 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 231 ; Lee, No. 177; Figgis, Part I, pp. 61-62. 

2 Figgis, Part II, pp. 8-11. 



1685] UPRISINGS OF ARGYLE AND MONMOUTH. 399 

king when circumstances were most favorable to liim ; when 
the Whigs were discredited; when the bulk of the nation, 
resenting the violence of Shaftesbury and his associates, and 
disturbed by the Rye House plot, were ready to give a Stuart, 
with a reputation for honesty, a fair trial. In three short 
years these conditions were exactly reversed, a result for 
which the king himself was wholly responsible. 

284. Uprisings of Argyle and Monmouth: the Bloody 
Assizes. — James began well. He promised ''to preserve the 
government as by law established." He released from the 
Tower Eoman Catholics and Quakers alike, and approved 
the sentence of fine, flogging, and imprisonment imposed by 
the courts on Titus Gates as a perjurer. Parliament, made up 
of members who owed their election to the influence of the 
government, proved highly favorable to the king, and made 
large grants of supplies. Matters seemed to be prosperous 
both for the Tory party and for the king. 

But the Whigs, though beaten and exiled, were by no means 
in despair. Under the leadership of Argyle in Scotland and 
of Monmouth in England, they attempted to recover their 
power. In May, 1685, Argyle landed at the firth of Clyde, 
and a month later Monmouth landed at Lyme in Dorset. 
Argyle's expedition was foolhardy in the extreme. He failed 
to find the support that he had expected in Scotland, and 
in June was captured and executed. Monmouth's venture at 
first gave more promise of success. The southwestern coun- 
ties were ready to rise in his support, the local militia was 
already favorable to him, and the manufacturing classes of 
the towns, such as Taunton, Exeter, and Bristol, and even 
London, were eager to furnish arms and funds, should a 
successful leader appear. But Monmouth, though romantic 
and dashing, was incompetent and cowardly. He got into 
trouble with his colleagues, wasted time at Lyme and Taun- 
ton, and when, at last, he was ready to act, found the king's 
troops strongly intrenched against him. At Sedgemoor 
(July 6, 1685) he was defeated. He fled from the field of 



400 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1685 

battle, only to be captured and taken to London, where, begging 
piteously for life, he was beheaded.^ 

Monmouth deserves little pity, and the failure of his cause 
arouses little regret, for, in all probability, he would have 
made a worthless king. But the punishment inflicted on his 
followers, the too faithful friends of an undeserving leader, 
stirs the soul to wrath. Colonel Kirke, with his soldiers, — 
Kirke's Lambs, as they were called, — was sent through the 
counties to wreak summary vengeance. Many rebels were seized 
and hanged on the spot, while scores of others were thrust into 
jail to await the coming of the justices. Jeffreys, the chief of 
the justices, though no worse than others of his time, aroused 
public horror because of the enjoyment he took in the work of 
the Bloody Assizes. He badgered, bullied, and sneered at his 
prisoners, and carried out a cruel law in a cruel manner.^ 
Three hundred prisoners were hanged, eight hundred were trans- 
ported as slaves to the West Lidies to endure a living death, 
while hundreds of others were flogged and imprisoned. James 
showed that the master was little better than the servant, for 
he made Jeffreys lord high chancellor of England. 

285. Consequence of the Rebellion : the Roman Catholic Policy 
of James. — The Monmouth rebellion was important, not only 
for its immediate, but also for its ultimate, results. Its failure 
undoubtedly gave new strength to the government, and the 
ease with which it was suppressed led James to entertain false 
ideas regarding his own power. He believed that the time 
had come when he could reestablish Eoman Catholicism in 
England, and he hoped to carry out his plan by exempting 
Koman Catholics from the laws, passed during the reign of 
Charles II, against liberty of conscience and freedom of 
worship. 



1 Henderson, Side Lights, Group XVII, pp. 158-170 ; Figgis, Part II, pp. 
12-16. 

2 Colby, No. 81; Figgis, Part II, pp. 1&-22. Irving's Life of Judge 
Jeffreys (1898) is of considerable value and corrects, in many particulars, 
Macaulay's narrative in the History of England. 



1686] ROMAN CATHOLIC POLICY OF JAMES II. 401 

Consequently, in November, 1685, when parliament reas- 
sembled, James demanded the repeal of the Test Act, which 
provided that no Koman Catholics could hold office in England. 
Parliament probably would not have repealed this act under 
any circumstances ; bat its determination not to do so was 
strengthened by the fact that Louis XIV, only a short time 
before (October 18, 1685), had revoked the Edict of Nantes in 
France, and had driven from that country thousands upon 
thousands of Huguenots. Though a Tory body and friendly 
to the king, parliament rejected the king's proposal; but to 
show its good will, it voted James a large additional grant for 
the increase of the army. 

Angry and disappointed, the king prorogued parliament and 
undertook to obtain his end in another way. Claiming the 
right as sovereign to grant special dispensation to any one 
who had broken a law, he at once applied this claim to the 
Test Act, and appointed Sir Edward Hales, a Roman Catholic, 
to a colonelship in the new army. That he should not be 
without legal support for what he had done, he had Hales's 
coachman inform against his master for violating the act.^ 
The case was tried before a packed bench of judges and decided 
in the king's favor. Immediately James began to shower ap- 
pointments on Roman Catholics, and Protestant England was 
confronted, not only with the overthrow of its constitutional 
liberties, but also with a possible Roman Catholic control of 
the government. 

James, encouraged by his success, applied his policy to the 
affairs of the church. For trifling offences he removed clergy 
of the church of England and put Roman Catholics in their 
place. He established an ecclesiastical commission,^ in defiance 
of the act of parliament passed in 1641, and disciplined those 
of the clergy who opposed him. He attacked the universities, 
appointing one Massey, a Roman Catholic, as dean of Christ 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 233; Figgis, Part II, pp. 27-28. 

2 Figgis, Part II, pp. 28-29. 



402 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1687 

church, Oxford, removing the vice-chancellor of Cambridge, 
and driving out the Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, who 
refused to elect as their president one of his own appointees.^ 
He received the papal nuncio in 1687, — the first nuncio in 
England since Mary's reign, — and conferred on him distin- 
guished honors. He openly encouraged the Koman Catholics 
by authorizing the founding of schools and monasteries, and 
by encouraging them to issue pamphlets and books defending 
their f aith.^ Then, as if to show that vrhat he had done would 
be defended, if necessary by force, he established an army of 
thirteen thousand men at Hounslow Heath, near London, and 
sent Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, to Ireland as lord lieutenant, 
to remodel the Irish army and, as was generally believed, to 
drive the Protestants from the island.* 

Slowly these many measures had their effect. The English 
people saw Eoman Catholicism gradually creeping over the 
land. Tories, who hitherto had been devoted to the king, began 
to see that, by supporting the Stuarts and defending the doctrine 
of passive obedience, they were encouraging the success of the 
Roman Catholic cause, which they hated more than they did 
that of the Whigs. 

286. The Declaration of Indulgence : Opposition of the Bishops. 
— James was strangely blind to the effects of his policy. He 
believed success was certain to crown his efforts. That he was 
rapidly incurring the disfavor of all, save Eoman Catholics, in 
England, he failed to comprehend. To him silence meant the 
acceptance of the schemes that he had so much at heart. 

In 1687 he took a new step. Without consent of parliament, 
he issued a declaration of indulgence, and the next year (April 
27, 1688), repeated it, granting freedom of conscience to all, 
suspending penal laws against Roman Catholics and Non-con- 
formists, remitting all penalties already incurred for breaches 
of these laws, allowing entire freedom of worship, and dis- 



1 Figgis, Part II, pp. 29-30. 8 Compare Lee, No. 178. 

2 Colby, No. 82; Figgis, Part II, p. 35. ■* Figgis, Part II, p. 34. 



1688] TRIAL OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS. 40S 

pensing with all oaths of supremacy.^ This declaration 
favored Non-conformists, such as Presbyterians, Congregation- 
alists. Baptists, and Quakers, as well as Roman Catholics, and 
was by many received with satisfaction. But its true purpose 
was too evident. James had not concealed the fact that, in 
his determination to gain the support of the Non-conformists, 
to humiliate the Anglican church, and to give free rein to his 
Roman Catholic policy, he was ready to set not only the 
Anglican Tories, but the law of the land, at defiance. 

Thus far little outward opposition to the king's policy had 
been expressed. But in 1687 and 1688 two indications of 
popular displeasure ought to have caused the king to pause 
and consider the wishes of the majority of the people of 
England. In the first place, James failed in his attempt to 
pack a parliament, and had to postpone summoning that body, 
fearing defeat ; and secondly, when he ordered the clergy to 
read the Declaration of Indulgence from their pulpits, he met 
with a refusal from certain bishops, who addressed a petition 
to him, begging him to desist.^ But these signs of popular and 
ecclesiastical disapproval only angered the king and strength- 
ened his determination. He ordered the seven bishops who 
had signed the petition — at their head, Bancroft, archbishop 
of Canterbury — to be tried for libel. On June 29 the trial 
took place. Public excitement increased ; popular demonstra- 
tions in favor of the bishops were held, notably in Cornwall, 
where one of the accused, Trelawney of Bristol, was much 
beloved ; and even in the court itself it was found difficult to 
fill the bench of judges. On June 30, when, after a day's 
trial,^ the jury brought in a verdict of " not guilty," the joy of 
the people knew no bounds, and even the soldiers on Hounslow 
Heath joined in the celebration.'* 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. CXXI; Adams and Stephens, No 234; Figgis, Part 
n, pp. 36-38. 2 Kendall, No. 98; Figgis, Part H, pp. 39-40. 

3 Kendall, No. 99; Figgis, Part II, pp. 41-45: 

^ Henderson, Side Lights, Group XIX, pp. 170-180. " There wac an infinite 
of bonfires on Saturday night, and in some streets they stuck all the posts 



404 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1688 

287. The Revolution of i688. — James was not deterred 
from his course. He planned to bring the case of the bishops 
before his ecclesiastical commission and to proceed against 
all the clergy who had refused to read the Declaration. But 
the spirit of the nation was aroused. " The cause of the 
church and the cause of freedom were now the same. The 
great majority of peers, both lay and spiritual, the univer- 
sities, the clergy, the dissenters, the army, the navy, the 
landed gentry, the merchants, all, in short, who called them- 
selves Protestants, were firmly knit together to oppose the 
king and his Eomish advisers. The Tories no longer held to 
the doctrine of passive obedience : they now maintained that 
extreme oppression might justify resistance." ^ 

Another event hastened the crisis. Until 1688 James was 
without a male heir, and in the event of his death, his 
daughter Mary, wife of the Protestant stadtholder of Holland, 
William, Prince of Orange, would succeed him. However, 
the birth of a son on June 10 of that year entirely altered the 
situation, for it guaranteed to the Roman Catholics the contin- 
uance of a government and a policy favorable to them. The 
Protestants saw no relief ahead, and their leaders determined 
to act at once. Seven prominent men, some Whigs and some 
Tories, led by the earl of Danby, addressed a letter in cipher 
to the prince of Orange, inviting him to come to England to 
uphold and protect their constitutional liberties.^ 

This invitation to William ,was exceedingly significant, for it 
promised an entire reversal of England's home and foreign 



with lights, and in Houlbourn they had a sort of machine with 3 and 400 
candles in it, which they carried in procession with a mighty rabble after it. 
I hear that for the prince's birth there were not above a dozen fires 'twixt 
Cheering Cross and Somerset House, and yet on Saturday night there were 
no less than six and fifty, besides the candles wherewith the windows were 
adorned, which is a new way they have found of showing their joy without 
incurring the penalty of making bonfires without leave." — (From a private 
letter of the time.) 

1 Hale, Fall of the Stuarts (Epoch Series), p. 129. 

2 Figgis, Part U, pp. 46-48. 



1688] THE INVITATION TO WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 405 

policy. For fifteen years William of Orange had been the 
leader of those who opposed the aggressions of Louis X-IV. 
Only once had England overcome her hostility for Holland 
sufficiently to join in an alliance against France; and on no 
occasion had she actually taken up arms against the great 
Eoman Catholic king who was threatening the peace of 
Europe. Louis had been able to buy off England by his sub- 
sidies to Charles II, and these subsidies he had continued to 
pay to James. Thus, up to this time England's king had been 
favorable both to Roman Catholicism and to France. 

But William of Orange was ''the champion of Protestant- 
ism and the liberties of Europe against French ascendency." ^ 
Two years before the invitation was sent to him, he had formed 
a great league of the European states, to prevent Louis from 
interfering in the affairs of the empire. Of this league 
England was not a member-, for, as long as James was king, 
England could not take the place Elizabeth had given her as 
the upholder of Protestantism and the enemy of France. 

To William the year 1688 was favorable, because Louis was 
at war with the league and could not easily attack Holland or 
aid James. He therefore accepted the invitation of the English 
leaders, and on October 10, 1688, despatched to England a 
proclamation, setting forth his reasons for accepting, and de- 
claring that his only object was "to obtain the assembling of a 
free and legal parliament which should decide all questions, 
public and private." Nine days later he set sail for England, 
with seventy ships and a Dutch army of fifteen thousand men. 
He disembarked at Torquay, on November 5, Guy Fawkes 
Day, a day propitious to the Protestants. Peasantry, towns- 
people, and local militia flocked to his standard. In the 
north and east successful movements in his favor destroyed 
the king's hopes there, while defections from the royal army 
were of daily occurrence. Lord Cornbury, the king's nephew. 
Lord Churchill, later duke of Marlborough, his favorite and 

1 Seeley, The Growth of British Policy, Vol. II, p. 277. 



406 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1689 

protege,^ and even his daughter Anne and her husband, 
Prince George of Denmark, joined the insurgents.^ 

James was now ready to make concessions,^ but it was too 
late. William was marching on London, and the city itself 
was filled with rioters. Having first placed the queen and the 
little prince on a vessel bound for France, James left his palace 
on the banks of the Thames, and made his way to the coast. 
Unfortunately he was there stopped by fishermen and brought 
back to London. He was lodged in Whitehall, at the very 
time when William was entering Windsor. But, as it was 
considered unwise for him to remain there, he was sent to 
Eochester on December 18, whence, four days later, he was 
allowed to escape, first to Ireland and afterward to France. 
There he sought the protection and became a pensioner of the 
French king, whose ally he had been.'' 

In the meantime,^ William entered London amidst great 
demonstrations of joy, and conferred with the leaders regard- 
ing the organization of the government. After considering 
many plans, William and the others agreed to request the 
House of Lords to meet and to act in conjunction with a 
body composed of members of the parliaments of Charles II, 
together with the officials of London.^ By them William was 
requested to act as temporary governor,^ and the people were 
instructed to send their representatives, elected in the usual 
manner, to a convention (not a parliament, since a king had not 
called it), that should meet on January 22, 1689.* 

The Convention met to decide the question of the succession. 
It resolved that James, by withdrawing from the kingdom, 
had abdicated, and that, therefore, the throne was vacant. It 
also resolved that experience had shown it to be inconsistent 



1 Kendall, No. 100; Figgis, Part II, p. 53. 

2 Henderson, Side Lights, Group XX, pp. 181-192. 

3 Figgis, Part II, p. 51. * Figgis, Part II, pp. 55-60. 

5 Seethe declaration issued by the "rebels "from Nottingham; Kendall, 
No. 101. 6 Lee, No. 181. 

7 Lee, No. 182. 8 Lee, Nos. 183-186. 



1689] THE BILL OF RIGHTS. 407 

with, the safety and welfare of the nation that a Eoman 
Catholic prince should rule the kingdom. The Convention 
then offered the regency to William and the crown to Mary ; 
but on William's refusing to be "his wife's gentleman usher,'' 
it offered the crown to William and Mary jointly, with the 
understanding that the actual government of the kingdom 
should be in the hands of the king.^ 

The Convention further decided that an attempt should be 
made to define, in a formal document, the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the English constitution. This was done in a 
famous constitutional document known as the Declaration 
of Right, which was accepted by William and Mary on Feb- 
ruary 19, 1689 ; and later, as the Bill of Bights, was made a 
part of the law of the land by act of parliament, on Decem- 
ber 16, 1689.^ By this memorable document, the Bill of 
Eights, certain constitutional privileges of parliament and 
people were exactly stated, and declared to be the unchangeable 
law of the kingdom. 

The provisions of the bill will be readily recognized as the 
outgrowth of the controversies of the period since 1660. The 
rights that James had claimed, to disj)ense with the laws, to 
establish an ecclesiastical commission, to levy money in any 
form without the consent of parliament, to maintain a stand- 
ing army dependent on the king instead of on parliament, were 
declared illegal. The right of the people to petition, as the 
bishops had done, the right of electors to choose members of 
parliament without interference, the right of freedom of speech 
in parliament, and the necessity of frequent meetings of par- 
liament for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of 
the laws, were all declared inalienable parts of the ancient 
rights and liberties of the English people. Lastly, a settle- 
ment clause was inserted, stating that no Eoman Catholic could 
possess the crown, and that after the death of William and 



1 Lee, No. 188; Figgis, Part I, pp. 63-67. 

2 Gee and Hardy, No. CXXII; Adams and Stephens, No. 239; Lee, No. 189. 



408 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1688 

Mary the succession should go to their children, or, in default 
of issue, to Anne and her children, or, in default of such, to 
the children of William by any other wife. After Mary's 
death, in 1694, and the death of Anne's only surviving son, the 
duke of Gloucester, in 1701, a further clause was added, set- 
tling the succession upon the granddaughter of James I, 
Sophia of Hanover, on the ground that she was the nearest 
Protestant heir.^ 

288. Significance and Consequences of the Revolution: Par- 
liament, the Church, Foreign Policy. — Thus was this " great 
and glorious " revolution accomplished. Won without blood- 
shed, it marked a new era in England's history ; for it over- 
threw the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the 
passive obedience of the people, which had prevailed under 
the Stuarts, and substituted therefor the authority of parlia- 
ment, and the right of the nation to resist the pretensions of 
its sovereigns. Though in choosing William and Mary as 
sovereigns and in arranging the succession, parliament had 
accepted, more definitely than ever it had done before, the 
principle of heredity, nevertheless, it had clearly stated certain 
things that the king could not do, and had taken to itself 
certain of the royal prerogatives, which had been in dispute 
for nearly a century. Thus the revolution of 1688 marked 
not only the close of that begun in 1640, but also the beginning 
of another revolution, which, little by little, in the course of 
the following century, won for parliament the control of gov- 
ernment and the position hitherto occupied by the crown. Up 
to this time parliament had had no part in the actual govern- 
ment of the kingdom. But, thenceforth, acts of parliament 
took the place of the king's orders in council, and a remark- 
able transformation was effected in the constitutional history 
of England. 

Three times before 1688 — in the cases of Edward II, Eich- 
ard II, and Charles I — had parliament set aside a king; but 

1 Gee and Hardy, No. CXXIV; Adams and Stephens, No. 243; Lee, No. 190. 



1688] CONSEQUENCES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 409 

in none of these instances was parliament acting in any sense 
for the nation at large. The parliaments of 1307 and 1399 had 
been wholly under the control of the nobility, and the knights 
and burgesses had been of little importance ; while the parlia- 
ment of 1649 had been no parliament at all, containing, as it 
did, only the representatives of a religious faction. But in 
1688 parliament expressed the will of the nation as nearly as 
the conditions of the time permitted. The House of Lords 
was still the more important and influential body, but the 
House of Commons was rapidly advancing toward the position 
that it was soon to occupy, that of leadership in the government. 

But the right to vote was limited ; for in the counties only 
freeholders possessing land of an annual rental value of forty 
shillings (f 150-$200) could vote, whereas poorer freeholders 
and all copyholders had no share in the elections. Probably, 
even within these limits, the counties were honestly represented, 
for the freeholders were not easily bribed ; but the boroughs 
were always subject to influence of one kind or another. Many 
growing towns were not represented at all ; others were at the 
disposal of town officials, great party leaders, or the king, 
the last-named of whom either changed the town charters to 
suit his purposes or compelled the towns to elect the men he 
wanted. At this time and for a century and a half (till 1832), 
borough representation was a farce.^ Thus, in consequence of 
the revolution of 1688, power passed into the hands of parlia- 
ment, but it can hardly be said to have passed into the hands 
of the representatives of the English people. Under the rule 
that followed, power was exercised for the most part by those 
great Whig and Tory families that were able to control the 
elections. 

Besides effecting this important change in the position of 
parliament, the revolution made possible an equally important 
change in the position of the established church. The revolution 



1 Compare the "Bill of Costs for a Tory Election, in 1715," in Kendall, 
No. 103. 



410 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1689 

had been iu large part the work of the Anglican church, which 
thenceforward had no cause to fear either the Roman Catholics 
on one side or the Dissenters on the other. The former, wholly 
discredited by the revolution, were, by special laws of the ensu- 
ing few years, disqualified from holding office, bearing arms, 
or retaining benefices, and for a century and more were to 
be without place or part in English political or ecclesiastical 
history.^ The passing of the Bill of Rights, which substituted 
for the oaths of supremacy and allegiance an oath of simple 
allegiance, led to a revolt of the stricter members of the Angli- 
can church, who believed in the doctrine of the divine right 
of kings and supported the Stuarts. This body, or sect, was 
known as the Non-jurors, because its members refused to take 
the oath prescribed.^ The Dissenters (Presbyterians, Indepen- 
dents, Baptists, and Quakers^), who had hitherto hoped for 
some kind of a compromise (comprehension) with the estab- 
lished church, now gave up that hope and began to erect 
churches of their own. The Toleration Act of 1689 gave them 
the right to worship independently ; ^ but from the advantages 
of this act all Roman Catholics and such as denied the Trinity 
were expressly debarred. Thenceforth the church of England 
held a position of independence and security that it had not 
enjoyed before. It was relieved of all fear of the Roman Cath- 
olics, and was left in full control of its own organization and 
great endowments of land and revenue. The Anglican church 
became, for the first time in any exact and well-defined 
sense of the term, the established church of England. 

The revolution of 1688 entirely altered the foreign policy of 
England, for it committed her to prolonged and almost un- 
broken war with France. Since the marriage of Henrietta, 
daughter of Henry IV, to Charles I, the Stuart kings had 
been naturally inclined to enter into alliances with the French 



1 Lee, No. 191. « Figgis, Part II, p. 73. 8 Lee, No. 192. 

4 Gee and Hardy, No. CXXIII; Adams and Stephens, No. 238; Figgis, 
Part II, p. 70. 



1689] CONSEQUENCES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 411 

kings. With the rise of Louis XIV, France had become the 
preponderating power in Europe and the disturber of the 
European peace. At the same time, however, William III, 
as stadtholder of Holland, had become the head of a coalition 
of the European powers against Louis XIV ; and now that he 
had become also king of England, he was under obligations 
to bring England into the alliance with the powers opposed 
to France. This he was able to do, because, in the first place, 
England, as a leading Protestant kingdom, could not well 
refuse to stand by the other Protestant kingdoms in opposing 
the aggressions of the Roman Catholic king who was perse- 
cuting the Protestants of France and had let loose his dragon- 
nades upon the Protestants of the Palatinate. In the second 
place, England was compelled to fight Louis XIV, because 
the latter, by sending troops to Ireland, was about to aid 
James II to recover his throne. 

But there was a third and more important reason why Eng- 
land should be drawn into war with France. As a colonial 
and commercial power France had taken the place of Spain 
and, in part, of Holland. She had established colonies in 
America and Africa, and was seeking to establish a colonial 
and commercial empire. England was doing the same: she 
had colonies on the American seaboard, in the West Indies, 
in Africa, and in India ; she was developing her navy and her 
commerce, and was gradually acquiring a tremendous interest 
in the world outside the island kingdom. Having helped to 
overthrow the political power of Spain and the commercial 
power of Holland, England was bound to continue the struggle 
with France. This new rivalry between France and England 
led to a struggle, not for the control of feudal fiefs as in 
former years, but for the supremacy of the seas and the pos- 
session of the lands beyond the seas. When, therefore, in 
May, 1689, William III, as stadtholder of the United Prov- 
inces, joined the League of Augsburg, and five days later, as 
king of England, declared war upon France, a new era in 
the foreign policy of England was begun. On December 30, 



412 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1688 

England joined the League of Augsburg, and that coalition, 
now composed of the principal countries of Europe, was 
transformed into the Grand Alliance. A mighty struggle, in 
which England was to take a leading part, was about to begin. 
Thus the revolution of 1688 not only overthrew a doctrine 
and a dynasty, and ushered in the rule of parliament and new 
methods of government, but it also inaugurated England's 
career as a leading participant in Continental affairs and the 
greatest naval power in the world. 



References for Chapter XI. — The history of the early Stuarts 
and the Puritan revolution has been entirely rewritten by Gardiner, 
Firth, and Shaw. All secondary histories are of necessity based upon 
their researches. Of Gardiner it has been well said that he found the 
story of the first Stuarts legend and left it history. His works are as 
follows : History of England, 1603-1642, 10 vols. (1883-1884, new ed. 
1899) ; History of the Great Civil War, 1642-1649, 3 vols. (1886-1892) ; 
History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1656, 3 vols. 
(1894-1901, 4 vol. ed. 1903). He had planned to carry his history to 
1660, but died before completing his work. At his express wish, the task 
thus left imfinished was taken up by Firth, who in The Last Years of 
the Protectorate, 1656-1658, 2 vols. (1909), carried the subject to the 
death of Cromwell In addition, Gardiner has wi'itten the lives of 
Strafford (Wentworth) and Laud in the Dictionary of National Biog- 
raphy ; The First two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution (1891), Epoch 
Series, the best brief outline; CromwelVs Place in History (1896), and 
Cromwell for the Goupil Series (published also in cheaper form, 1901), 
which contain his matured views upon the great Protector. Firth's 
other publications deal chiefly with the period from 1603 to 1660, and 
include The Clarke Papers, 4 vols; (1891-1901), Cromwell (1900), and 
CromwelVs Army (new ed. 1912). Firth has written also the life of 
Clarendon in the Dictionary of National Biography, and has printed a 
lecture, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1909). He has also written 
The House of Lords during the Civil War (1910). Additional works on 
Cromwell are Carlyle's Oliver CromwelVs Letters and Speeches, 2 vols. 
(4th ed. by S. C. Lomas, 1904) and Morley's Oliver Cromwell (1900). 
Other works of importance for the early Stuart period are Relf\s The 
Petition of Bight (1917), Usher's Reconstruction of the English Church, 
2 vols. (1910), and Rise and Fall of the High Commission (1913)^ 



REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XI. 413 

Hayne's Henrietta Maria (1912), and Shaw's A History of the English 
Church during the Civil War and the Commonwealth, 2 vols. (1900). 
There are lives of Raleigh by Creighton (1877), Taylor (1902), Gosse 
(1886), Southey (1851), Hume (1897), St. John (1868), Edwards (1868), 
Stebbing (1891, new ed. 1899), de Selincourt (1908), of which the best 
are those by Edwards and Stebbing. Mention may be made of Button's 
William Laud (1895), eulogistic ; Cooper's Life of Strafford (1874) ; 
Wade's John Pym (1912), unsatisfactory; Cecil's Life of Robert Cecil 
(1915), excellent. For Ireland, the standard work is Bagwell's Ireland 
under the Stuarts, 1603-1690, 3 vols. (1909-1917), but a satisfactory 
shorter and more popular account is in Joyce's Ireland (20th ed. 1914). 
Murray's Revolutionary Ireland and its Settlement (1911) is an authority 
of high rank. Dunlop's Ireland under the Commonwealth, 1651-1659 
(1913) is chiefly documentary, with an admirable historical introduction. 
For Scotland Hume Brown's History of Scotland still contains the best 
general treatment. 

The commercial policy of the Stuart kings is yet to be -^ritten. 
Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce is the standard 
work. Warner's Landmarks contains a valuable chapter on the trading 
companies. EdmunBon's Anglo- Dutch Rivalry (1911) is important, and 
for the Eastern trade and the East India company Hunter's History of 
India to 1623 (1899) is indispensable. For agriculture, see Prothero's 
English Farming, Past and Present (1912), and Hasbach's History of 
the Agricultural Labourer (1908). On the colonial pohcy, Egerton's 
Short History of British Colonial Policy (new ed. 1913) and Lucas's 
Historical Geography of the British Colonies (new and revised ed.) are 
useful ; and Beer's "Cromwell's Policy in its Economic Aspects," Politi- 
cal Science Quarterly, Vols. XVI and XVII, and Cunningham's essay, 
"The Imperialism of Cromwell," in The Wisdom of the Wise (1906), 
should be read for Cromwell's interest in commerce and colonization. 
Andrews has written an essay, "Raleigh's Place in American Coloniza- 
tion," in the Proceedings of the North Carolina Literary and Historical 
Association, 1918, and British Commissions, Committees, and Councils 
of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675 (1908), a treatise on early trade 
control. 

On the constitutional side, Hallam is useful ; the preface to Prothero's 
Select Statutes (later portion dealing with James I) is admirable ; Taswell 
Langmead's English Constitutional History (5th ed. 1896), Chap. XIII, 
is helpful in default of something better ; Jenks's Constitutional Experi- 
ments of the Commonwealth (1890) has merit ; Borgeaud's Rise of De- 
mocracy in Old and New England (1894) is most suggestive ; and Gooch's 
History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (1899) 



414 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 

is worthy of careful attention. Two noteworthy articles deserve men- 
tion : Osgood's " Political Ideas of the Puritans," Political Science Quar- 
terly, March, 1891, p. 1 ; and Dow's "The Political Ideal of the English 
Commonwealth," English Historical Review, April, 1891. These should 
be read in conjunction with Figgis's The Theory of the Divine Right of 
Kings (1899, 2d ed. 1914). Medley and Montague are particularly 
useful for this period. 

The period of the later Stuarts has not yet received the attention of 
investigators, and is still barren of works of an authoritative character. 
Airy has written The English Restoration and Louis XIV, to 1679, in the 
Epoch series (1889), and Charles II (1901), in the Goupil series. The 
latter, though written twelve years after the first, shows little advance in 
an understanding of the king and his policy. Airy has also edited 
Burnett's History of My Own Time, to the close of the reign of Charles 
II, 2 vols. (1897, 1901). Hale's The Fall of the Stuarts and Western 
Europe, 1678-1697, Epoch series (1889), continues Airy's book in the 
same series and presents an excellent account of the period. Macaulay's 
brilliant, but eminently one-sided, History of England (many editions, 
also illustrated edition, edited by Firth), is attractive to read, but its 
judgments must be accepted with caution. Ranke's History of England, 
principally in the Seventeenth Century, is hardly available for any except 
well-equipped readers. Lister's -Li/e of Clarendon (1838), and Christie's 
Life of Shaftesbury (1871), are standard works, while Pepys's Diary 
(1659-1669), Evelyn's Diary (1620-1706), Clarendon's Autobiography, 
and Temple's Memoirs are valuable sources of information. See also 
Barbour's Life of Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington (1914). Brief lives 
of all the principal personages of the period can be found in the Diction- 
ary of National Biography. 

On England's naval expansion and foreign policy, the most important 
works are Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660- 
1783 (1889) ; Seeley's Expansion of England (1883), and The Growth 
of British Policy, 2 vols. (1895), and Corbett's England in the Mediter- 
ranean, 1603-1713 (1904). Tanner's " Administration of the Navy from 
the Restoration to the Revolution," English Historical Review, 1897- 
1898, is valuable for closer study. See also Moorhouse's Samuel Pepys, 
Administrator, Observer, and Gossip (1909), and Tanner's Samuel Pepys 
and the Royal Navy (1920). 



CHAPTER XII. 

EXPANSION OF ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY 

RULE. 

289. William III. — William III was a foreigner, and be- 
longed to a people little liked by the English. He was 
unfamiliar with the customs and traditions of English gov- 
ernment and life, was naturally cold and suspicious, and seems 
to have had a strain of heartlessness in his nature, as is 
shown by some incidents of his early life and by his attitude 
toward the massacre of Glencoe. Always old beyond his 
years, and brought up in the midst of factional quarrels in 
Holland, he had learned early to be wary and politic. He 
came to England determined to rule honorably and well, but 
his heart was not in his work. From the beginning he found 
himself confronted with the rivalries of Whigs and Tories, 
all of whom were uncertain, because of the changes wrought by 
the revolution itself, just how the government should be carried 
on. Caring little for the problems of government, and desir- 
ing chiefly to reconcile parties, that he might make England 
strong to aid him in his military enterprises, he naturally was 
inclined to favor compromise. As king he was neither Whig 
nor Tory, Anglican nor Dissenter. He chose his advisers at 
first from both parties. At the very outset of his reign he 
tried to persuade parliament to pass a "comprehension" bill 
reconciling Anglicans and Dissenters ; and when that failed, 
he favored the Toleration Act, in order to bind the Dissenters 
to him. War against Louis XIV was his mission in life ; 
every thing else was secondary. So far as he personally was 
concerned, every act of his government was but a means to 
the eventual reduction of the power of France in Europe. 

416 



416 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1689 

290. Resistance of the Scottish Highlanders : Glencoe. — Before 
William could undertake his chief work in earnest, he had to 
make secure his control in Scotland and Ireland as well as in 
England, and become undisputed king of the three kingdoms. 

James II had governed these two lands as conquered prov- 
inces. In Scotland he had given the government into the 
hands of the Scottish Episcopalians, who checked every attempt 
of the Covenanters to gain control. When James II fled from 
England, the Covenanters, led by the Argyles of the Campbell 
clan, turning the tables on the Episcopalians, drove the estab- 
lished clergy from their parishes, abolished Episcopacy, and 
proclaimed William and Mary sovereigns of Scotland. But 
trouble followed these rather high-handed measures. John 
Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dandee, a noble of the 
Graham clan, aroused the Highlanders and took up arms for 
James. At Killiecrankie, on July 27, 1689, his followers, 
armed with sword and target, won a dashing victory over the 
soldiers of the new government, who were armed with musket 
and the new-fangled bayonet just introduced from France. But 
the brilliant victory availed little, for Claverhouse was slain 
in the battle, and without him at their head the clans were 
unable to hold togetlier. In 1691 William bought their alle- 
giance with gifts of money and promises of amnesty. His 
success, however, was stained by the slaughter of the Mac- 
donalds of Glencoe, victims to the old-time hate of the Camp- 
bells, who as Whigs and Covenanters had obtained control 
of the government.^ That bloody murder of February 13, 
1692, was long remembered by the Macdonalds, who during the 
next century never lost opportunity to seek revenge. 

291. National Uprising in Ireland: Battle of the Boyne. — 
In Ireland, William had to fight more bitterly for his crown 
than he had in Scotland. The able but unscrupulous Tyrcon- 
nel, whom James had sent over to hold Ireland for the Stuarts, 
had done his work well. He had made the Eoman Catholics 

1 Colby, No. 84 ; Kendall, No. 102; Figgis, Part II, pp. 85-92. 



1690J BATTLE OF THE BOYNE. 417 

the dominant power, and had roused all the Irish hatred of the 
Protestants and the English. Consequently, when William 
became king of England, the greater part of Ireland was in 
the hands of E-oman Catholics, and the nation, loyal to James, 
sprang to arms in order to throw off the burden of English 
Protestantism. English and Scottish Protestants everywhere 
fled from the country. Only in Ulster, in the towns of 
Londonderry and Enniskillen, had they forces enough to resist 
the advancing Roman Catholics. In March, 1689, James II 
arrived from France with aid furnished by Louis XIV, and 
began the siege of these towns. The fight was to the death, 
for already had the Irish parliament, wholly under the control 
of Roman Catholics, declared for the independence of Ireland, 
confiscated the lands of the English, and passed an act of 
attainder against two thousand English and Scottish Protes- 
tants. The siege of Londonderry is a famous event in history. 
Eor one hundred and five days the heroic people held out, until 
at last a fleet sent by William, in August, 1689, saved the day, 
and prevented northern Ireland from falling into the possession 
of the Roman Catholics. 

Encouraged by this success, William himself came over, 
and with his general, Schomberg, a Dutchman and Huguenot 
refugee, pushed southward and met the forces of James at the 
river Boyne, in Leinster, north of Dublin. There James and 
his French and Irish allies were hopelessly defeated.* The 
battle of the Boyne (July 1, 1690) destroyed the last hope of 
the Stuart king, and he fled to France. The flight of James 
left the Irish face to face with the struggle for their own 
independence, and for four months they fought like heroes. 
But William was too great a general for them to hope for 
success. Cork and Kinsale in the south, Athlone in the west, 
and finally, after two sieges. Limerick in the southwest, were 
taken, and the whole of Ireland passed under English and 
Protestant control. 

1 Figgis, Part II, pp. 83-84. 



418 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1691 

With the peace of Limerick (October, 1691), the war was 
ended. Ten thousand Irish soldiers were allowed to withdraw 
to France, and the definite promise was made that Roman 
Catholics in Ireland should be protected. But this promise 
was not kept. As events were to prove, the bigotry of the 
Eoman Catholics under Tjrconnel was to be fully matched 
from this time forward by the bigotry of the Protestants in the 
Irish parliament. From 1690 to 1778, a Roman Catholic in 
Ireland was treated like a criminal and an outlaw. 

The battle of the Boyne and the capture of Limerick were 
of great importance to William, for they saved the day for 
him, not only in Ireland, but also in England and in France. 

292. The War with France : Victory of La Hogue. — In May, 
1689, before he undertook the subjugation of Ireland, William 
had declared war against France, and had sent troops under 
Churchill ^ to cooperate with the Continental allies. Louis's 
great object was to strike a quick and decisive blow, in order 
to force upon the allies a humiliating peace. When, therefore, 
his general, the great Luxembourg, defeated the English and 
Dutch at Fleurus in the Netherlands (June 30, 1690), and on 
the same day the French fleet defeated Admiral Torrington off 
Beachy Head in Sussex, Louis seemed to have gained his end. 
All that was needed to complete the victory was success in 
Ireland. 

For William the moment was a critical one. His position 
was insecure in England. Disaffection was widely prevalent, and 
Tories like Marlborough and Admiral Russell were already in 
correspondence with James. ^ The Jacobites, a party favorable 
to the Stuarts, were forming, ready to welcome the Stuarts back 
to England should Louis and James be victorious. The Con- 
vention, which had been made a legal parliament on February 
20, 1689, had been dissolved by William in January, 1690, 
because of the quarrels of the Whigs and Tories ; and William 



1 Created earl of Marlborough in 1689, and duke of Marlborough in 1703. 

2 Figgis, Part II, pp. 92-94. 



1697] VICTORY OF LA HOGUE. 419 

had even threatened to abdicate the throne. * But the victory 
of the Boyne entirely changed the situation. The Jacobites 
lost ground; the nation, fearing a French invasion after the 
defeat off Beachy Head, demanded a cessation of party strife; 
the victory gave new prestige to the government of William 
and Mary; and when William returned from Ireland after 
the peace of Limerick, he was greeted by the nation with 
expressions of loyalty and devotion. He disgraced Marlborough 
by depriving him of all his offices in 1691, but left Eussell in 
command of the fleet. For this expression of confidence he 
received a speedy reward. While he himself was in Flanders 
and was losing ISTamur and the battle of Steinkirk^ (1692), 
Russell, on May 19, 1692, won the sea fight of La Hogue, which 
was on the sea what the battle of the Boyne had been on 
the land. This victory of the English fleet over the powerful 
armament of France was not only the first great sea victory 
in the maritime struggle between England and France, but it 
was the first of a series of victories that made England mistress 
of the seas. 

The remainder of the war was for England indecisive. 
William was unsuccessful, except in the capture of Namur in 
1695; but the staying powers of the allies wore out the 
strength of France. Louis, dependent as he was on swift and 
decisive victories, finally acknowledged that he could not suc- 
ceed, and in 1697 signed the treaty of Ryswick. By this treaty 
he recognized William as king of England and Anne as his 
successor, thus yielding one of the chief points for which the 
war had been undertaken. 

293. Parties at Home. — While the war was dragging on its 
weary course abroad, party conflicts were producing confusion 
and discouragement at home. The Whigs, having been the 
victors in 1688, were in the main in control until 1698. But 
meanwhile they passed through two serious crises: one in 
1690, at the time of the battle of the Boyne ; the other in 1692, 



1 Figgis, Part II, pp. 98-100. 



420 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1695 

before the victory of La Hogue was won. Had either of these 
victories gone to the French, the Whigs would have been over- 
thrown and James might have been reinstated as king of Eng- 
land. But the victory of La Hogue gave the Whigs an estab- 
lished position, and the Whig ministry, called the Junto, which 
William appointed in 1695, remained in office until 1698. In 
this year, owing to the prolongation and great expense of the 
war, a reaction took place in favor of the Tories, and though 
peace had been made in 1697, the Tories won in the elections 
of 1698. They retained their control until 1701, when, owing 
to further aggressions of Louis XIV, the Whig supremacy was 
reestablished. When Anne came to the throne in 1702, the 
Whigs were turned out of office and Tory leadership was 
restored. Into the details of these party struggles we need 
not go ; it will be sufficient to sum up briefly the results of 
William's reign in government, legislation, and finance. 

294. Government and Legislation under William III. — As 
king, William was no figurehead. He loved rule as much as 
had any Stuart, and he claimed prerogatives that his chief sup- 
porters, the Whigs, did not like. He was at the same time 
king, prime minister, minister of foreign affairs, and com- 
mander-in-chief of the army ; and he exercised each one of 
these functions. He presided at the meetings of his chief 
advisers, made appointments, and transacted a great deal of 
business, without asking the opinion of any one. His chief 
advisers and heads of great departments formed an inner com- 
mittee of the Privy Council, later to be known as the Cabinet.^ 
These ministers were appointed by the king, but were of 
no one party and in no way represented the majority in 
parliament. Their position was a difficult one, for many of 
them tried to serve two masters, king and parliament, at the 
same time. They did not resign when the vote went against 



1 This select group was known by various names, such as cabal, cabinet, 
and committee, and was well recognized in the reigu of Charles II and firmly 
established by the time of William III. In Anne's reign the name "cabinet 
council " was in frequent use. 



1692] WILLIAM III : GOVERNMENT AND LEGISLATION. 421 

them ; and if dismissed, went out singly, and not as a body. It 
was to be many years before the ministers as a body were to be 
held responsible by parliament for the acts of the king, and to 
resign as a body if parliament defeated any of their measures. 

The House of Commons was inferior both in dignity and in 
importance to the House of Lords. An ambitious commoner 
always hoped eventually to become a peer. Furthermore, the 
House was not a very efficient body, and its members, who were 
easily drawn off to cock-fighting, horse-racing, and tennis, took 
their responsibilities very lightly, and spent more of their time 
in quarrels and impeachments than in legislation. The com- 
moners had no great leaders and but little party organization, 
though the Whigs were in the habit of meeting beforehand to 
consider important matters. But there was no system and no 
party unity, and the wits of the time — Defoe, Swift, Dryden, 
and others — made endless sport of the way in which parlia- 
mentary affairs were conducted. 

Parliament succeeded, however, in passing a number of 
exceedingly important measures. The Convention, declaring 
itself a lawful parliament,^ passed the Mutiny Act,^ which 
gave parliament the control of the army ; the Toleration Act,^ 
which legally recognized the Non-conformist churches, as well 
as the church of England; and the Bill of Rights,^ which 
embodied in the form of law the principal provisions of the 
Declaration of Eight. The same parliament in 1689 settled 
upon the king for the use of the crown a fixed sum, known 
as the civil list,^ thus separating for the first time the private 
expenses of the king from the public expenses of the govern- 
ment. At the same time it made a definite appropriation for 
government, at first for four years, afterward for only one year, 
thus compelling the king to summon parliament annually. By 
neglecting to renew an old censorship act of 1662, it made 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 235. * Adams and Stephens, No. 239; 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 237. Lee, No. 189. 

8 Adams and Stephens, No. 238. * Adams and Stephens, No. 236, 



422 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1694 

possible freedom of the press ; and thenceforth newspapers and 
pamphlets were of great influence politically. In 1694 the 
second Whig parliament passed a Triennial Bill/ requiring the 
king to issue summons for the election of a new parliament 
every three years; and in 1696 the third Whig parliament 
reformed the procedure in trials for high treason and made 
it more just and humane.^ Lastly, the Tory parliament of 1701 
passed the Act of Settlement,^ which not only settled the suc- 
cession upon the Hanoverians, but also placed definite limita- 
tions upon the power of the king. Each of these acts marked 
a great constitutional advance in the direction of better gov- 
ernment. 

295. Sources and Conditions of England's Wealth. — Of equal 
importance with the constitutional changes were the changes 
taking place at this time in the financial condition of England. 
In the wars of the next century, victory was to be, not with 
the power that possessed the bravest soldiers and sailors, but 
with that which could furnish the most money. Though Will- 
iam was one of the ablest generals in Europe, he could have 
done but little had not England provided him liberally with 
men, ships, and the munitions of war; and all these things 
cost money. 

After the revolution of 1688, parliament having gained con- 
trol of the public purse, claimed the right to say how the 
money should be used and to know how it had been spent. 
By this revolution the financial condition prevailing under the 
Tudors and Stuarts was brought to an end. Thenceforth no 
king would be compelled to raise money illegally or to receive 
a pension from a king of France on the ground that parliament 
would not take the responsibility of seeing that there was 
money enough in the treasury to run the government. Parlia- 
ment was managing the funds and was consequently obliged to 
see that the supplies granted were duly raised by taxation. 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 241. * Adams and Stephens, No. 243. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 242. 



1694] SOURCES OF ENGLAND'S WEALTH. 423 

In taking these powers to itself, parliament undoubtedly acted 
as a check upon the king; but it also relieved him of a great 
burden. The finances of England thenceforth stood on a new- 
footing. 

Money was raised by customs duties, excise duties, stamp 
duties, and a tax on land and personal property. Customs 
duties were import duties on sugar, salt, tea, coffee, tobacco, 
and wines brought into the country, and export duties on 
English manufactured goods, such as woollen cloths, sent out 
of the country. Export duties were, however, eventually 
abolished. The excise was a tax on articles of consumption 
produced in England, such as malt, coal, glass, bricks, leather, 
soap, candles, and paper. Afterward the term excise, which 
had a hateful sound to the English people, included licenses to 
trade and to sell liquors, and taxes on luxuries, such as car- 
riages, horses, cards, etc. Stamp duties were duties from 
stamps on documents of all kinds. The tax on land and per- 
sonal property took the place of the old tenths and fifteenths 
and of the subsidies levied by the Tudors. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the amounts thus raised were 
large, they were insufficient for the wars, and it became neces- 
sary to add to them by means of loans. Formerly goldsmiths 
and private individuals had made such loaiis, but without any 
certainty, since the Stop of the Exchequer, that they would 
receive the principal or even the interest. In 1692 parlia- 
ment authorized the borrowing of £l,0OO,OOO, and the gov- 
ernment asked for the money from any one who would lend 
it, promising to pay the interest regularly. Thus began the 
national debt of England.^ In 1694, when William was in 
great and immediate need of funds to continue the war, and a 
general loan was not thought expedient, a new device was 
tried. Parliament said that those who "would subscribe 

1 For the connection between the Stop of the Exchequer and the National 
Debt, see p. 391, note 2. For the whole subject of money and credit at this 
time, see Cunningham's Outlines of English Industrial History, Chap. VII. 
See also Colby, No. 85. 



424 ENGLAND UNDER PAKLIAMENTARY RULE. [1694 

£1,200,000, the amount desired, might form a company and 
do private business. The formation of this company was the 
beginning of the Bank of England. Hitherto only private 
banks had existed, such as those of the goldsmiths ; but now 
the government authorized the establishment of a public bank, 
which received deposits from private individuals, and when 
necessary, loaned these deposits to the government. These loans 
became a part of the national debt. The founding of the Bank 
of England introduced a new system of financiering, by encour- 
aging the use of paper money and the saving of funds. The 
introduction of credit and capital made possible a great exten- 
sion of business and stimulated enterprise. The moneyed class 
now came over loyally to the support of William's government. 

The opportunities thus given to extend business and accumu- 
late money were coincident with a new era in manufactures 
and commerce. Befugees from Holland and France — Flem- 
ings, Walloons, and Huguenots — had already begun to intro- 
duce new industries into England. Woollen manufactures had 
prevailed hitherto, but now silk, linen, and cotton began to be 
worked up, and scores of small articles, like combs, buttons, 
jewellery, and baskets, were made. Manufacturing increased 
twenty fold. Swifter and better methods were employed, but 
the processes were 3till crude, and production was on a small 
scale. 

Parliament began to assume control in matters of commerce 
also. Hitherto private companies, incorporated by the 
crown, had been the leading agents in promoting trade and 
colonization. The great desire of all was to find new mar- 
kets and to hold them for England, to destroy all commercial 
rivals like France, and to build up colonies that were to 
serve as a source of strength to the mother country. Parlia- 
ment passed a navigation act in 1696, which had for its object 
a more efficient carrying out of the terms of the old act.^ In 
the same year it established for the first time a permanent 

iMacDonald, No. 43. 



1702] ACCESSION OF ANNE. 425 

board of trade and plantations, to look after commerce and the 
colonies ; and it refused to charter any more joint-stock com- 
panies, with a monopoly of trade or of territory. The only 
exception to this policy was the re-incorporation of the East 
India Company in 1698. 

296. Accession of Anne. — England certainly needed all her 
wealth in the struggle before her. William died on February 
20, 1702/ with his great work only in part completed. But 
his plans had been carefully matured, and he died in the full 
assurance that England would continue the war with France. 
The Whigs were in control, and the w^ar fever was rapidly 
rising. Anne, Mary's sister, succeeded to the throne, according 
to the Act of Settlement, and entered on a reign of twelve years. 
She was a good woman, of quiet habits and simple tastes, loyal 
to her friends and to the church. Her husband, Prince George 
of Denmark, was of little consequence, either as a man or as 
an adviser of the queen. Accordingly, Anne, whose devotion to 
the church and its prerogatives made her a Tory, and whose 
loyalty to her friends made her submissive to stronger wills 
than her own, fell under the influence of the Marlboroughs, 
the duke and his wife, the latter of whom was an old and in- 
timate friend of the queen. ^ 

On her accession, Anne at once dismissed the Whigs from 
office, and placed in power Marlborough, who now found it 
convenient to become a Tory. She did not by any means give 
up all control, for she appointed her own ministers, and to some 
extent controlled their actions. She also received foreign 
ambassadors, and dictated despatches, and for the last time in 
English history she used the royal veto (1707). But Marl- 
borough directed the policy of the government, and at least 
until 1707 was the real ruler of England. Though as a private 
person he was greedy and unscrupulous, he was the first general 



1 For traits of William and Mary, see Henderson, Side Lights, Group XXII, 
pp. 205-214; Figgis, Part II, pp. 126-133. 

2 Figgis, Part II, pp. lOa-105. 






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[426] 



WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. 427 

of his age, and saw with unmistakable clearness the necessity 
of continuing the war policy. With all his moral defects — 
and they were many — Marlborough was the true successor of 
William III, and was destined to complete what William had 
begun, the discomfiture of Louis XIV and the humiliation of 
France. 

297. War of the Spanish Succession: The Causes. — The 
general cause of the war was the attempt of France to place the 
Bourbons in control of the throne of Spain. A century after 
the death of Philip II (1598), Spain had fallen from her high 
estate and had become an object of strife among the great 
powers of Europe. She had no army, no money, and no credit. 
Some of her possessions were in the hands of England, others 
belonged to Holland and France ; but the remaining territories 
still left her one of the largest kingdoms in Europe. The 
childlessness of her king, Charles 11^ (1665-1700), made the 
question of succession to her throne one of the most intricate 
and difficult of the problems that Europe was ever called upon 
to solve. Claims to the throne, based on marriages with Spanish 
infantas, were put forward by the king of France, the elector 
of Bavaria, and the archduke of Austria. Should France make 
good her claim, the peace of Europe would be threatened ; and 
should she obtain possession of Spain's territory in the New 
World, England's commercial supremacy and her control over 
her colonies would be imperilled. 

Louis XIV had realized that the powers of Europe would not 
allow him to annex Spain, and as far back as 1668 had sought 
to arrange a partition of the territory with the emperor. At 
that time England and Holland were unable to interfere, for 
they had their own difficulties to contend with; but after thirty 



1 Charles II was the great-grandson of Philip II, and a sickly king for 
whom the diplomats of Europe prophesied an early death. Louis XIV had 
anticipated the event as early as 1668, but the king tenaciously adhered to 
life for thirty-three years after that. There can be little doubt but that the 
king, who fully appreciated the situation, took a grim pleasure in living to 
despite his enemies. 



428 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1698 

years, with the revolution of 1688 completed and William of 
Orange king of England, their interest in the question became 
very keen. When, therefore, in 1698, the policy of partition 
was revived, it was with England and Holland, and not with 
the emperor, that Louis XIV treated. Two partition treaties 
were signed ; the first in 1698, settling the Spanish succession 
upon Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, a child five years old ; the 
second, after the death of Joseph in 1699, settling the succes- 
sion upon the archduke Charles. All seemed to be happily 
arranged, when suddenly Charles II died (1700). To the sur- 
prise of every one, his will named the grandson of Louis XIV, 
Philip of Anjou, as his heir. Louis, throwing the partition 
treaties to the winds, accepted the legacy, and allowed Philip 
to enter on the inheritance. ^ 

At first the English people v/ere unwilling to interfere, for 
they were tired of war, and in 1698 had turned out the warlike 
Whigs and placed the Tories in power. But the continued arro- 
gance of Louis changed their temper. With blind infatuation 
the French king touched the sensitive spot in the English na- 
ture. He issued decrees plainly designed to curtail England's 
trade in Spanish- American waters ; and in September, 1701, at 
the death-bed of the exiled James II, he recognized the latter's 
son as the rightful heir to the English throne,^ thus violating 
the terms of the treaty of Eyswick. In an instant the English 
people were filled with a desire to punish the autocrat of 
France. 

298. Marlborough's Victories. — Louis's insult to England had 
accomplished more than had all William's diplomacy. Sup- 
ported by an enraged people, William organized the Grand 
Alliance of European States, and war began, with nearly all 
the powers ranged against France. From the beginning, how- 
ever, it was England's war; for she furnished the greatest 
general, Marlborough, and from it she was to win the greatest 
glory. 

1 Figgis, Part II, pp. 119-122. 2 Figgis, Part II, pp. 123-124. 



1706] 



MARLBOROUGH'S VICTORIES. 



429 



War was formally declared in May, 1701, and, though 
William died in 1702, the struggle continued altogether for 
twelve years. It was fought out in Italy, Bavaria, Spain, the 
Netherlands, America (as Queen Anne's war), and on the sea. 
Marlborough began his campaign in Planders, while his chief 
ally, Eugene of Savoy, 
fought in upper Italy, and 
the English navy watched 
for opportunities in the 
West Indies and the 
MediterraneaUo At first 
little was accomplished on 
either side. Then Louis 
XIV sent his army to 
cooperate with the Bava- 
rians in an attack on 
Vienna. Marlborough, to 
ward off the attack, hurried 
by forced marches from 
the Dutch frontier, and 
having been joined by 
Eugene in Bavaria, faced 
the French and Bavarians 
at Blenheim, in 1704. 
There he won a famous 
victory, which saved the 
empire from invasion.^ In 
the same year Sir George 
Rooke captured Gibraltar ^ and held it against every attempt 
of the French to recover it. The capture of Gibraltar and 
the occupation of Barcelona the next year by the earl of 
Peterborough showed the superiority of the English fleet.^ 
In 1706 Marlborough won the great battle of Kamillies,* which 

1 Colby, No. 86; Kendall, No. 115; Figgis, Part II, pp. 136-139. 

2 Figgis, Part II, pp. 196-197. 4 Figgis, Part II, pp. 160-16L 
8 Figgis, Part II, pp. 153-159. 




Duke of Marlborough. 

From the original in the posses- 
sion of the duke of Marlborough. 



430 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1706 

saved the Spanish Netherlands, just as the victory of Blenheim 
had saved Vienna. 

In 1706 Louis was willing to treat for peace ; but the allies 
rejected his overtures and continued the war.. In 1708 they 
won the battle of Oudenarde in Flanders and captured the 
powerful fortress of Lille. Only the fortress of Mons lay be- 
tween Marlborough and Paris, and Louis was almost in despair. 
Again he sued for peace (1709), and again the allies made 
the terms humiliating in their harshness. Then the old king 
turned to the French people and called for one mighty effort. 
The response was heroic. The last army that France could 
raise was sent to the front, only to be beaten, honorably 
beaten after a brave fight, in the bloody battle of Malplaquet 
(1709).^ Louis might well seem to be at the end of his 
resources. 

299. Fall of Marlborough and the Whigs : Treaty of Utrecht. — 
At this juncture a change of party control in England saved 
France. The English were tired of the war. As long as the 
question of the Spanish succession threatened to endanger the 
commerce of England, they were willing to fight ; but by 1710 
that danger had been averted, and consequently their interest 
waned. Marlborough, who had gone into the war a Tory, 
found it expedient to attach himself to the party of the Whigs, 
who had proved to be his chief allies. By 1708 the ministry 
had become wholly Whig, greatly to the dissatisfaction of 
Queen Anne, who was beginning to tire of the influence of the 
Marlboroughs.^ In 1710 her opportunity came. The Whigs, 
by prosecuting Dr. Sacheverell for a Tory sermon,^ aroused in- 
dignation in the country and became exceedingly unpopular. 
Thereupon the queen dismissed the Whigs, restored the Tories 
to power, and after depriving the duchess of Marlborough of 



1 Figgis, Part II, pp. 170-172. 

2 Henderson, Side Lights, Group XXIII, pp. 217-227; Figgis, Part H, pp. 
146-148. 

8 Figgis, Part II, pp. 172-175. 



1713] TREATY OF UTRECHT. 431 

all her offices, showed her entire independence by recalling 
Marlborough himself from the command (1712),* 

Marlborough's fall meant the end of the war. The Tories 
hurried the peace negotiations, and in 1713 the treaty of 
Utrecht was signed.^ England rather basely neglected the 
interests of her allies and gained the greatest advantages from 
the treaty. Philip V was recognized as king of Spain, and 
the Indies were confirmed as Spanish possessions. To place 
barriers in the way of further French aggrandizement, Holland 
was given control of the fortresses on her frontier, Prussia re- 
ceived territory on the Ehine, and Savoy an extension of land 
in northwestern Italy. Prom Spain, England received Minorca 
and Gibraltar in the Mediterranean; from Prance, Nova 
Scotia, all claims to Hudson Bay territory, a portion of St. 
Kitts, and Newfoundland, though the Prench in resigning all 
territorial claims in Newfoundland retained the right to catch 
fish and to dry them on certain portions of the coast.® Spain 
granted to the South Sea Company the right, known as the 
assientOy or exclusive contract, of importing a certain number 
of slaves to the Spanish colonies in South America for thirty 
years, and allowed the company to send one ship annually with 
English goods to trade at the Spanish fairs in South America. 
Thus the commercial activity of England was widely extended.* 

300. Union with Scotland. — While England, by the treaty 
of Utrecht, was gaining important commercial advantages and 
extending her empire abroad, she was also consolidating her 

1 Figgis, Part II, pp. 175-182. 2 Figgis, Part II, pp. 183-190. 

3 British dependencies, after Utrecht, were the twelve original colonies on 
the eastern coast of North America; Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Hudson 
Bay territory, north of these colonies; and the Bahamas, Barhadoes, Jamaica, 
and the Leeward Islands in the West Indies. In Africa the Royal African 
Company had a few forts on the gold coast, and in India the East India Com- 
pany had Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, as commercial, not territorial, cen- 
tres. At this time chiefly commercial advantages were sought, and the British 
government attached slight importance to territorial acquisitions. All the 
colonies were more or less neglected in consequence. 

^ For a more exact statement of these privileges ceded by Spain, see article 
by Williams, English Historical Review, April, 1900, p. 271. 



432 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1707 

kingdom at home. Cromwell had given representation in the 
English parliament to both the Scots and the Irish ; but the 
Restoration had separated the three kingdoms, granting each a 
parliament of its own, though keeping them all under a com- 
mon king, the king of England. Since that time Scotland and 
Ireland had been governed by commissioners appointed by the 
king, and in many ways had been treated as foreign countries. 
The acts of navigation had forbidden the English colonies to 
trade with them, except through England, and Scottish mer- 
chants and manufacturers had suffered greatly from this restric- 
tion of their market. The Darien expedition of 1698, designed 
to open new markets to the Scots by colonizing the Isthmus of 
Darien, proved a bad failure,^ and showed the Scots how im- 
possible it would be for them to build up a trade except by 
union with England. The English, on their side, were afraid 
lest, on the death of Queen Anne, Scotland should break away 
from England entirely and form an independent kingdom. 
This fear was increased in 1704, when the Scottish parlia- 
ment, refusing to accept the terms of the Act of Settlement, 
threatened to select a different successor from the one named 
by England. Consequently, after a year's deliberation, union 
was agreed upon. 

The famous Act of Union was adopted in 1707. It roused, 
among the independent Scots,^ an intense opposition that time 
only could eradicate, but in the end was to be the making of 
the Scottish nation and kingdom. By this act^ the two king- 
doms became one state, with one parliament, one debt, one 
system of taxation, one body of commercial and trading privi- 
leges, and one flag, the Union Jack."* Only in church and law 
and justice did differences exist. Scotland retained Presby- 
terianism as the state religion, and administered law and jus- 



1 Figgis, Part II, pp. 115-118. 2 Figgis, Part II, pp. 164-166. 

« Adam and Stephens, No, 244; Colby, No. 87; Lee, Nos. 193, 194. 

* The Union Jack was composed of the crosses of St. George and St. An- 
drew. The term "Jack" is from Jacques (James), because James I tried 
to introduce such a flag in 1603. 



1710] THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION. 438 

fcice in her own way. Thenceforward England, Wales, and 
Scotland were known as Great Britain. 

301. Position of Ireland. — Ireland remained, as before, a 
dependency under a Protestant parliament, excluded from the 
trade advantages possessed by England and Scotland. The 
Irish were forbidden to raise tobacco, a heavy tax was placed 
on their wool, and their manufacture of linen was discouraged. 
For the sake of Scotland and the colonies, Ireland was deliber- 
ately prevented from developing her natural resources. Fur- 
nished by nature with few sources of wealth, the Irish saw 
themselves checked at every point by the political and eco- 
nomic jealousy of their wealthy neighbor. 

302. The Hanoverian Succession.^ — The shifting of party 
politics had brought the Tories into office in 1710, and this 
position they retained until 1714, under such leaders as St. 
John (Viscount Bolingbroke), Harley (Earl of Oxford), the duke 
of Ormond, and others. In that year the sickness of Queen 
Anne brought up the question of the succession. According 
to the Act of Settlement, the heir to the throne was the aged 
Sophia, electress of Hanover ; but by her death, in 1714, the 
title passed to her son George, a phlegmatic and uninteresting 
German, fifty-four years old. That he had a claim to the 
British throne at all was in itself an extraordinary fact. He 
was not the nearest heir, nor was he an elected king. The 
people had not chosen him, and, had they been asked, would 
probably have rejected him. The Act of Settlement had been 
passed by the House of Commons in a moment of intense ex- 
citement, the members fearing that Louis XIV would recognize 
the son of James IT as heir to the English throne, as he did, in 
fact, three months later. The more men thought about the 
arrangement, the less they liked it, and from 1702 to 1714 it 
steadily lost favor. Little wonder, therefore, that after the 
danger from France had been removed, the opposition to a 
Hanoverian succession began to increase. 

1 Compare Henderson, Side Lights, Groups XXIV, XXV, pp. 228-244. 



434 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1714 

Taking advantage of this situation, the Tory leader, Boling- 
broke, a brilliant orator but erratic statesman, began a cam- 
paign for the restoration of the Stuarts. But his efforts were 
checked by the honorable refusal of James III, the Pretender, 
to change his religion from Roman Catholic to Anglican. This 
decision divided the Tories, many of whom were unwilling to 
see a Roman Catholic on the throne. Therefore, when on 
August 1, 1714, Queen Anne died very unexpectedly, the Whig 
friends of the Hanoverians were able to declare George king. 
On September 18 he landed in England, and the reign of the 
house of Hanover began. 

303. Discomfiture of the Tories: Mar's Uprising. — The succes- 
sion of George I was a victory for the Whigs. In the mind of 
the new king, the Tories were Jacobites, and with them he 
would have nothing to do. He selected his first ministers, 
Townsend, Stanhope, and Walpole, from among the Whigs, 
not because the Whigs were the stronger party, — they were 



HOUSE OF HANOVER. 

George I = Sophia Dorothea 
1714-1727 I 

George II = Caroline of Anspach 
1727-1760 I 



Frederick, Prince of Wales William, Duke of Cumberland 

d. 1751 d. 1765 

Geoite 111= Charlotte of 
1760-1 820 I Mecklenburg-Strelitz 



George IV = Caroline Frederick William IV = Adelaide Edward Ernest Adolphus 

.n«« .o„,^ Qf Duke of 1830-1837 ofSaxe- Duke of Duke of Duke of 

Brunswick York Meiningen Kent Cumber- Cambridge 



1820-1830 
Princess Charlotte 



land 

Victoria = Albert of Saxe- 
1887-1901 I Coburg 



Edward VII = Alexandra of 
1901- i Denmark 



Duke of Cornwall 

and York 
Prince of Wales 
Heir Apparent 



1715] MAR'S UPRISING. 435 

probably weaker in numbers than the Tories, — but because 
they were his supporters and could command a majority in the 
House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Whigs, 
thus restored to power, impeached Bolingbroke, Oxford, and 
Ormond.^ They imprisoned Oxford for two years and passed 
an act of attainder against Ormond and Bolingbroke, the 
latter of whom fled to France. These extreme measures, 
which savored of persecution, led to many Jacobite riots in 
1715; and, in order to strengthen the authorities, parliament 
passed the Riot Act,^ a measure of which little good can be 
said, though it is in force to-day. 

. More serious than the Jacobite riots in England was the 
Jacobite movement in Scotland, known as Mar's Uprising.^ A 
general insurrection in England and Scotland had been planned 
by Bolingbroke ; but unfortunately for the success of the under- 
taking, the Pretender, headstrong and impatient, ordered the 
earl of Mar to act in Scotland before the English Jacobites 
were ready. Mar was defeated at Sheriffmuir (ISTovember 13, 
1715) ; his colleague, Forster, was defeated at Preston; and, 
though James himself went to Scotland to encourage his sup- 
porters, the whole movement proved a failure. Mar and the 
Pretender escaped to France, but eight of their followers were 
beheaded. 

For five years the Jacobites continued their agitation, 
relying chiefly on foreign aid. After the death of Louis XIV 
(1715), France refused to help them; but in 1719 Cardinal 
Alberoni of Spain, in an effort to restore that kingdom to her 
place among the powers, took up the cause of the Stuarts 
and invaded Scotland. His expedition was entirely without 
success. 

304. Growing Importance of the Cabinet and the House of Com- 
mons. — By 1720 the Whigs were triumphant over their 
enemies, the Tories were everywhere discredited, and the 



1 These were the last political impeachments in English history. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 246. « Compare Lee, No. 195. 



436 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1720 

house of Hanover was firmly established on the throne. But 
George I was a very different man from William III. He 
made no attempt to be a personal ruler, and left everything to 
his ministers. He was not popular, and half the people of 
England would have been glad to get rid of him. He was 
German; and, speaking no English, could not talk to either 
ministers or people. Moreover, he had a greater interest in 
the affairs of Hanover than in those of Great Britain, and by his 
ignorance and indifference destroyed what affection or regard 
his English people might have had for him. He leaned entirely 
on the Whigs, and refused to have a Tory in his ministry. 
Consequently, party government in a new sense began to pre- 
vail, and the cabinet became the responsible governing body of 
the kingdom. George appointed his own ministers, but left 
them to manage affairs more or less as they pleased. Thus 
the power of the crown steadily declined, and the power of the 
cabinet steadily increased. 

The House of Commons, too, underwent an important 
change. Under George I it gained in power and importance, 
until it was of more dignity and consequence than the House 
of Lords. Three causes may be assigned for this change. 

Since the Triennial Act of 1694 a new parliament had to be 
elected every three years ; but in 1716 the Whigs, fearing to 
lose the election in case parliament were dissolved, passed the 
Septennial Act, which continued their session and that of suc- 
ceeding parliaments for seven years.^ This law, which still 
prevails, had the undoubted effect of dignifying the House of 
Commons, though it also increased bribery, because membership 
for seven years was more valuable than for three. 

A second cause was the fact that as government became more 
expensive, the House of Commons, which controlled the purse, 
became more and more influential. It was one thing to disburse 
£2,300,000 in 1699, and quite another to control £10,000,000 
in 1743. The national debt had risen to £52,000,000 in 1714, 



A Adams and Stephens, No. 247. 



17212 MINISTRY OF WALPOLE (1721-1742). 437 

and to £55,000,000 in 1721. Financial questions touching 
economy and expenditure became leading issues in the 
eighteenth century ; and the House of Commons was the storm- 
centre of debate. 

Finally, the policy of Walpole, the greatest Whig minister 
of this time, had much to do with making the House of Com- 
mons more powerful than the House of Lords. Daring his 
entire ministry of twenty-one years, Walpole remained a com- 
moner, and his seat of activity was the House of Commons. 

305. Ministry of Walpole (1721-1742).— Under Townshend, 
the Whig ministry had not been successful, and in 1717 
Townshend was dismissed, Walpole resigned, and Sunderland 
and Stanhope became the leading ministers. Though Stanhope 
successfully carried through the war of 1719-1720 with Spain, 
he fell because of the financial excitement aroused by the South 
Sea Bubble. ^ This enterprise was a huge speculation in the 
shares of the South Sea Company, which was organized to trade 
in South America and to take advantage of Spain's concessions 
in the treaty of Utrecht. The ministry got into trouble in the 
matter by allowing the company to take over the national debt, 

— which had hitherto been managed by the Bank of England, 

— on the condition that it would pay the debt out of the profits 
of its trade. But a frightful panic followed the wild scheme, 
and the Stanhope-Sunderland ministry was carried down in the 
crash. In 1721 Walpole and Townshend became the leaders of 
a new cabinet. 

Walpole's long ministry forms an epoch by itself in English 
history. It was a period of peace, economy, and financial 
reform. It was not a time of progress in politics or legislation, 
for Walpole had little interest in the constitution as such. Nor 
was it a period made important by treaties or by diplomacy 
and foreign affairs ; for in the main Europe was at peace. But 
it was a time marked by great progress in the wealth and com- 
fort of the English people. 

1 Colby, No. 88; Mahon, History of England, Vol. II, pp. 3-13. 



438 



ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. 



[1721 



Walpole, who must be classed as a financier rather than a 
statesman, lived in an age of bribery and corruption, an age 
characterized chiefly by coarseness in manners and stagnation 
in religion, morals, and intellectual life. His own motto, " Let 
sleeping dogs lie," was characteristic of his age. He took good 
care to arouse no class of the people to passion or rage, by any 
attempts to change the political or religious conditions of the 

kingdom. Such a policy 
tended to make men and 
women indifferent and cal- 
lous, because it did not 
arouse in them any interest 
in social or religious reform. 
Drunkenness, lawlessness, 
inhumanity, widely pre- 
vailed. Society lived for 
pleasure and personal gain. 
On the other hand, such a 
policy of neglect was in 
many ways most beneficial 
to the country at large. 
Trade and commerce in- 
creased; new towns. in the 
north and west grew in size 
and wealth ; and an in- 
terest in better agricultural 
methods, in landscape gar- 
dening and roads, was 
awakened. The indiffer- 
ence and lethargy could not 
be permanent, whereas the gains in wealth and resource were 
to stand Great Britain in good stead in the exciting years that 
were to follow. 

Walpole had three general purposes : first, to unite the land- 
owning and moneyed classes in support of the house of 
Hanover, and so make secure the throne of the Georges, whom 




Robert Walpole. 

From the original of C. Jervas in the 
collection of Thomas Walpole, Esq. 



1740] WALPOLE'S COMMERCIAL POLICY. 439 

he served; second, to develop trade and industrial activity at 
home, by reducing taxation and cutting down the national 
debt; and third, to strengthen the navy and to encourage 
commerce with the colonies abroad, on the principle that the 
greater the prosperity of the colonies, the greater would be their 
demand for English goods.^ 

He began his work by restoring confidence in the nation's 
credit, which had suffered in the financial panic caused by the 
South Sea scheme. Then he inaugurated a great and far-reach- 
ing reform of the whole tariff system, partly to check smuggling 
and adulteration, and partly to encourage manufacturing at 
home and to relieve the poor. In 1721 he removed export 
duties from one hundred and six articles of British manufac- 
ture, and import duties from thirty-eight articles of raw ma- 
terial; and he further reduced the duties on many of the neces- 
saries of life. His colonial policy was even more noteworthy. 
The mercantile classes, who still looked on the colonies as 
sources of supply for the mother country, wished to prevent the 
colonists from trading anywhere except in England, and from 
manufacturing anything that was likely to compete with the 
manufactures of England. Instead of enforcing rigorously the 
navigation acts, on which this policy depended, Walpole was 
rather inclined to neglect them and to allow the colonies to do 
as they pleased; instead of encouraging the passage of 
additional acts restricting colonial trade, he objected to the 
whole system whereby England monopolized that trade, and 
tried in one or two cases to overthrow the monopoly. In 1730 
he allowed Carolina, and in 1735 Georgia, to send their rice to 
any European port south of Cape Einisterre, and in 1740 he 
allowed the traders of the West Indies to do the same 
with their sugar; provided, in both cases, the commodities 
were carried in ships that were built by British shipbuilders 
and manned by British sailors. He continued the bounty on 
colonial naval stores and removed the duty on colonial timber; 



1 Kendall, No. 116. 



440 



ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1732 



but he did not prevent parliament in 1732 from forbidding 
the colonies to manufacture hats. His colonial policy opened 
new markets for colonial products, and the American colonies, 
made thirteen by the settlement of Georgia in 1732, entered on 
a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity. 

While favoring the merchants and the colonists, Walpole 
desired to aid the landed gentry also. He considered the land 



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/M _.., , -,:r?,: p-t' 


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The Old Tabard Inn Yard in Southwark. 
Used before 1866 as a railway and shipping office. 



tax ruinous and unfairly levied, and by 1731 had succeeded in 
reducing it from four shillings to one shilling on the pound. 
In order to keep the tax at that low rate, and at the same 
time to make up the loss in revenue, he was obliged to adopt 
new methods of taxation. Therefore, in 1733, he introduced 
his Excise Bill, one of the most remarkable of his measures, and 
one followed by stirring events. He proposed to change cer- 
tain customs duties into excise duties, by allowing importers 



1733] WALPOLE'S EXCISE BILL. 441 

to store their commodities — such as tobacco and other 
imported goods — in warehouses at the docks without paying 
duty, and by obliging them to pay an internal tax only on 
those portions of their goods that they took from the ware- 
houses and sold within the country. Thus, instead of paying 
a customs duty on a commodity like tobacco, the merchants 
were to pay an internal revenue duty on the amount con- 
sumed and to have the privilege of reexporting what remained. 
A similar plan had already been tried in the case of silks, 
pepper, tea, and coffee. The Excise Bill was wholly admirable 
from a financial point of view, because it would have checked 
smuggling, made the collecting of duties easier and simpler, 
would have been a step in the direction of free trade, and would 
have lightened the burden of the land tax. But it bore the 
hated name of " excise," and fears were at once aroused lest cus- 
toms duties were to be changed into internal revenue duties, and 
lest government officials in greater numbers than before were 
to be let loose upon England. A fury of opposition was raised 
within the country, and public opinion was everywhere against 
the bill. Walpole bent before the storm. Though a majority in 
parliament could have been obtained for the measure, he 
decided to push it no further. Eor almost the first time in 
English history, public opinion won a victory over a parlia- 
mentary majority. 

Walpole was chiefly influential in matters of trade and 
finance, but indirectly he contributed to the shaping of the 
constitution, not by passing laws, but by the practical work of 
conducting the government. He organized his followers in the 
House of Commons and gave shape to party government ; he 
transformed the old group of ministers into a working cabinet 
and made himself the supreme ministerial head of the govern- 
ment ; * he raised the House of Commons to a position more 
important than the House of Lords. 

1 After Townshend resigned in 1730, Walpole was in reality prime minister, 
though the term was unknown to the constitution and was repudiated hj 
Walpole himself. It did not come into use till the next decade. 



442 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1727 

306. Opposition to Walpole : War with Spain (i 739) . — Again s t 
a position as strong as that held by Walpole the Tory opposi- 
tion hurled itself in vain. Bolingbroke, returning to England, 
became the leader of the Tories, and with the help of Pulteney 
and a group of Whigs whom Walpole had affronted by his 
domineering methods, did all that he could to overthrow the 
ministry.^ George I died, and George II succeeded to the 
throne (1727) ; but Walpole continued in office, mainly because 
he was supported by Queen Caroline, who ruled her husband. 
The failure of the Excise Bill did not weaken the position of 
Walpole, and it was left for a foreign question, though one 
intimately connected with the growth of England's commerce, 
to overthrow him. 

After the resignation of Townshend, in 1730, Walpole as- 
sumed control of foreign affairs. He continued the alliance 
with France, which Cardinal Fleury, the French minister, was 
equally anxious to maintain; and he positively refused to 
be drawn into wars abroad. But the war of the Polish Suc- 
cession (1733-1735) led to a change in Fleury's policy. The 
French and Spanish Bourbons secretly formed the first " family 
compact," as it was called, in accordance with which Spain 
promised to transfer to France the commercial privileges in 
America that had been granted to Great Britain by the treaty 
of Utrecht, if in return France would help to wrest Gibraltar 
away from the English. Tnese commercial privileges had 
become very important to British merchants and had led 
to a gradual and illegal extension of British trade in South 
American ports. The "one ship a year" allowed by the 
treaty had become a small flotilla, and smuggling was carried 
on unblu shingly. 

The exasperated Spanish officials, resenting this abuse, 
attempted to retaliate. Tales of horrible atrocities, of Eng- 
lishmen confined in Spanish dungeons and driven to labor in 
Spanish chain-gangs, were brought back to England and were 



1 Colby, No. 90. 



1742] IMPORTANCE OF WALPOLE'S MINISTRY. 443 

artfully worked up by Bolingbroke and his Tory colleagues. 
One Captain Jenkins appeared before the bar of the House and 
told how his ear had been torn off by a brutal Spanish captain.^ 
England could endure no more; and burning with indigna- 
tion, — hardly righteous, since Spain had a just grievance, — 
demanded redress. Contrary to Walpole's wishes and efforts, 
war was declared in 1739. The " War of Jenkins's Ear," as 
it was called, ended in a failure, which was charged against 
Walpole. The opposition, taking advantage of Walpole's un- 
popularity, made every effort to overthrow him. Walpole's 
majority in parliament grew steadily smaller, until in 1741, 
in connection with a disputed election return, it amounted to 
but one vote. Therefore, in February, 1742, Walpole resigned 
and his great ministry came to an end. 

307. Importance of Walpole's Ministry. — But Walpole had 
done his work. The Hanoverian dynasty was firmly estab- 
lished. Great Britain was commercially prosperous, and con- 
sequently contented. A new generation of men had grown up 
since the days of William III and Queen Anne, and the ques- 
tions of the earlier period no longer troubled the nation. Men 
no longer worried about the Act of Settlement; the mass of 
the people wanted stable government, and with this guaranteed, 
cared little whether the king was a George or a James, a Han- 
overian or a Stuart. The new importance of parliament made 
the doctrine of divine right of little moment, and very few were 
prepared to risk their lives and their property for the sake of 
one whose claims to the throne rested on birth only. Trade, 
financial security, and personal comfort were now of greater 
importance to the majority of Englishmen than were the 
quarrels of Continental dynasties or the demands of a Jacobite 
pretender. 

308. War of the Austrian Succession. — Nothing shows 
better Great Britain's indifference to Continental affairs than 



1 For letters illustrating these outrages and proving the truth of Jenkins's 
story, see English Historical Review, 1889, p. 741 ff. 



444 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1743 

the attitude assumed by the British government in the war of 
the Austrian Succession. The archduke of Austria, Charles 
VI, who was also the emperor, had only a daughter, Maria 
Theresa. Fearing that her succession to the Austrian throne 
would be disputed after his death, he drew up the Pragmatic 
Sanction, a document designed to secure this succession, and 
presented it to the European states for acceptance. A 
majority of the governments signed the document. Great 
Britain among the number. But no sooner had Charles VI 
died, in 1740, than Frederick II of Prussia seized Silesia; 
and France, supporting the claims of the elector of Bavaria to 
the Austrian throne, prepared for war. King George, as 
elector of Hanover, was intimately concerned with German 
affairs.^ He and his minister, Lord Carteret, Walpole's suc- 
cessor, made an alliance with Maria Theresa, and hired an 
army of Hanoverians and Hessians to fight against France. 
Under the command of the king in person, this army won the 
battle of Dettingen, on the Main, June 27, 1743, and drove the 
French army across the Rhine. But the British parliament, 
saying that the Germans could settle their quarrels among 
themselves, gave Carteret no support, and he was obliged to 
resign in 1744. The duke of Newcastle and his brother, 
Henry Pelham, came into office, but on account of the hostile 
attitude of France, were compelled to continue the war. 
Having lost the battle of Fontenoy, May 1, 1745, they gave 
up the struggle, and devoted themselves to the attainment of 
peace. In 1748, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, 
which restored to each contestant all that had been lost dur- 
ing the war. During the struggle, England's chief interests 
had been in the navy, which had won two victories over the 
French fleet, and in the American colonists, who had captured 
Louisburg in 1745. 

1 On the importance of Hanover in shaping the Continental policy of Great 
Britain during the reigns of George I and George II, see a work of great 
interest and importance by Ward, Great Britain and Hanover (1899). It is 
especially valuable for the diplomacy of the wars of this period. 



1745] JACOBITE UPRISING OF 1745. 445 

309. The Young Pretender; Uprising of 1745. — Taking 
advantage of the war, the Jacobites made another and last 
attempt to obtain possession of the English throne. In 1744, 
Louis XV had promised to invade England, in behalf of the 
Stuarts ; but, after the victory of Fontenoy, he had abandoned 
the project, on the ground that Flanders was a better point 
of attack. The Young Pretender, Charles Edward, son of 
the Old Pretender, James, therefore determined to make the 
attempt on his own account, and to test once more the loyalty 
of the Highlanders. Setting out with a few followers, in a 
single vessel, he landed at Moidart in western Scotland. 
After gaining control of Scotland by winning the battle of 
Prestonpans,^ on July 25, 1745, he crossed the frontier and 
advanced into England. 

His march to Derby aroused great apprehension in London, 
but his efforts were without success. Had a Stuart invaded 
England thirty years before, he might have involved the 
kingdom in a civil war ; but the prosperity of the country 
under the management of Walpole, and the decrease in the 
number of Stuart sympathizers, made success impossible. The 
English Jacobites failed to support the prince ; the people 
counted on to flock in crowds to his standard came only in 
small numbers ; and, finally, Charles Edward was forced to 
retreat. Marching despondently back to Scotland, he was 
defeated at Culloden by a largely superior army under the 
duke of Cumberland on April 16, 1746. After many roman- 
tic adventures, he made his way to France, where he ended, 
in 1788, his inglorious career. 

310. An Era of New Interests. — England's half-hearted 
interest in the war of the Austrian Succession and her 
repudiation of the Stuarts were indicative of a new era that 
had been ushered in by the peace policy of Walpole. Ques- 
tions larger than the Pragmatic Sanction or the claims of a 
pretender were arousing the British people to a new activity 

iLee, Nos. 196-200; Colby, No. 92, 



446 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1749 

in the worlds beyond the seas, where lay the frontier posts 
of British empire. At the same time, at home a religious 
revival was already stirring the people to the depths, and was 
awakening a new spirit in the English democracy. The indif- 
ference and scepticism of the preceding half-century were to 
give way to an unprecedented outburst of military enthusiasm 
and religious fervor. 

311. The English in India and America. — France and Eng- 
land were already rivals for the great regions in the east and 
the west, in India and in America. But France had been the 
first in the field and had won control of the largest amount of 
territory. Before the time of Colbert, the great minister of Louis 
XIV, the French had made expeditions to the East ; but the real 
beginnings of their influence in India dated from the founding 
of the French East India Company in 1665 and the establish- 
ment of trading factories at Surat. Their efforts were not, how- 
ever, very successful ; and it was not until Labourdonnais be- 
came governor of Mauritius and Dupleix became governor of 
Pondicherry (1742) that the political influence and prestige of 
the French was established. The English had established 
themselves at Madras in 1639, at Bombay in 1661,^ and at Cal- 
cutta in 1698 ; but during the war of the Austrian Succession 
the French under Dupleix had won a number of victories and 
had become the real masters of the region in southeastern 
India known as the Carnatic. It was a bitter moment for 
Dupleix when the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle compelled him to 
return to England what he had so bravely won. 

While the French and British were fighting for the leader- 
ship in India, they were also fighting for supremacy in America. 
In 1749 the Ohio Company had been formed for the purpose of 
founding a colony in the Ohio valley, already guarded by a 
French fort. For a century there had been occasional conflicts 
between the French and English along the northern frontiers ; 
but the struggle for the first time became serious in the Ohio 

1 For the English at Surat and Bombay, see Lee, No. 229. 



1756] ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN AMERICA. 447 

valley. The French, step by step, had advanced their outposts 
and were hemming in the English colonists on the seaboard. 
In 1754 a Virginian colonel, George Washington, at the head of 
a small colonial army, attacked a body of French troops near Fort 
Duquesne ; but the English colonists did not support him, and 
he was obliged to withdraw. The British claimed that the 
French had not a shadow of right to the Ohio valley ; while 
Duquesne, governor of Canada, sent word to the governors of 
New York and Pennsylvania that he would permit no settle- 
ments other than French in that region. The French under 
Duquesne, and afterward under Montcalm, were able to act 
quickly and effectively ; but the English colonies, lacking 
common interest and a common army, moved slowly, while the 
home government, with Newcastle at its head and a body of 
insubordinate colleagues to thwart him, was inefficient and 
weak. The feeling in England was one of despondency, for 
Englishmen believed that the government was incompetent 
to meet the great dangers that were confronting them. The 
French seemed to be on the point of driving the English out 
of India ; and when in America the British expedition organ- 
ized under General Braddock suffered an overwhelming defeat 
in 1755, it began to look as if the French would remain mas- 
ters of the Ohio valley, and would successfully connect their 
Canadian possessions with those on the Gulf of Mexico. 

312. A Revolution in Continental Alliances. — Although war 
between France and England had not been formally declared, 
yet war between the French and English had already begun, 
both in the Ohio valley and in India. On the ocean, too, dur- 
ing the year 1755, a running war was carried on between the 
British fleet and French merchantmen, and some three hun- 
dred French vessels and over seven thousand French sailors 
were captured and brought into British, ports. Therefore 
France and Great Britain, knowing that a conflict could not 
be avoided, began to look about for Continental allies. 

For forty years Great Britain had been on friendly terms 
with Austria, chiefly because the Georges, as electors of Han- 



448 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1756 

over, were jealous of the house of Brandenburg (Prussia), the 
old-time rival of Hanover in Germany. Walpole had never 
favored this policy, because he believed that it was injurious 
to Great Britain's commercial development and sacrificed the 
interests of the British people to those of the house of Han- 
over. He had frequently urged an alliance with Prussia. 
After the conclusion of the war of the Austrian Succession, 
Great Britain and Austria drifted apart, each dissatisfied with 
the other.^ On January 15, 1756, England and Prussia signed 
a treaty of alliance at Westminster. 

Following this alliance, Austria and France, after long 
negotiations, drew together, and in the treaty of Versailles, 
May 1, 1756, formed an alliance against Prussia and Great 
Britain. These two treaties effected a complete reversal of 
the traditional British and French policies, a change due, in 
the first place, to the sudden rise of Prussia under Freder- 
ick the Great, and in the second place, to the steady growth 
in commercial importance of the British nation. 

313. Outbreak of the Seven Years' War: British Disasters. 
— Frederick, subsidized by Great Britain, began the attack. 
Though victorious over Austria at Prague, May, 1757, he was 
defeated at Kollin by the Austrians ; and his general, Lehwald, 
was beaten by the Russians at Gross jagersdorf in August. But 
with great courage he turned against the French, and on 
November 5, 1757, won a famous victory at Eossbach near 
Leipzig. This victory showed that Frederick II, the king of 
a young and rising kingdom, was also the head of a powerful 
army and one of the greatest generals in Europe. 

England's share in the war was without glory. The duke of 
Cumberland was disgracefully defeated at Hastenbeck in Han- 
over, and forced to sign the treaty of Closter-Leven, leaving 
Hanover in the hands of the French. An expedition sent by 
sea against Rochefort on the French coast ended in failure^ 

iHassall, The Balance of Power, 1715-1789 (Periods Series), pp. 215-217, 
234-235; Williams, in English Historical Review, April, 1900, p. 267; Ward, 
Hanover and Great Britain. 



1757] 



WILLIAM PITT. 



449 



and an expedition under Admiral Byng, sent to ^ recover 
Minorca, which had been captured by the French in 1756, 
withdrew without firing a shot. In America, Lord Loudoun, 
attemi)ting to take Louisburg, which had been returned to 
France by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, proved utterly incom- 
petent and accomplished nothing. Men began to see that the 
trouble lay, not with the troops, but with the commanders; 
that favoritism and rank had been the causes of promotion, 
and that military experience had been but little considered 
when generals were to be selected. 

314. William Pitt. — The year 1757 was one of discourage- 
ment to the British government, for scarcely one campaign 
had resulted successfully. Popular 
indignation was aroused against the 
Newcastle administration, and so 

violent was the temper of the 
country that Newcastle deemed it 

best to resign (November, 1757). 

A wave of popular feeling carried 

William Pitt into the ministry, as 

the first secretary of state and the 

actual prime minister. " The eyes 

of an afflicted, despairing nation," 

says a contemporary, "saw in this 

private gentleman, without birth 

and without fortune, the only 

saviour of England." Pitt, who was 

connected with none of the great 

Whig families of his day, became 

the leading minister, in spite of king, lords, and commons, 

because he was the only minister of his day in whom the 

people had absolute confidence. 

Pitt's strength lay in his enthusiasm and incorruptibility. 

He was arrogant, affected, and deplorably unpractical and 

careless; but he was filled with patriotic fervor strikingly un- 
like the indifference, distrust, and helplessness of those who 




William Pitt, the Elder. 

From a painting by 
R. Brompton. 



450 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1757 

had preceded him. In an age of corruption, selfishness, and 
dilettante statesmanship, he was remarkable for his ability 
and honesty. He was free from class prejudice and unusually 
keen in his judgment of men — a true leader, in whom the 
middle class, the moneyed class of the nation, could have con- 
fidence. He taught the people to be hopeful, brave, and self- 
reliant, and to subordinate their individual interests to the 
interests of the country at large. In short, he was almost 
the only statesman of the century, except Walpole, who had 
a disinterested regard for England's future. 

315. Two Years of Victory. — Pitt's influence was felt im- 
mediately. A new treaty was made with Prussia, whereby a 
subsidy of £670,000 was to be paid to Prussia annually, for 
the purpose, as Pitt said, of winning America in Germany, by 
aiding Prussia to defeat France on the Continent. The duke 
of Cumberland as commander-in-chief was replaced by Fer- 
dinand of Brunswick, who proved his ability, in August, 1759, 
by winning the victory of Minden, on the Weser, thereby 
driving the French out of Hesse and eventually forcing them 
back over the Ehine. 

Events of even greater importance were taking place in 
India and America. In 1743 Robert Clive, a young English- 
man, had been sent to Madras, where for three years his chief 
work had been the casting up of accounts. But in 1751 a war 
between native princes, involving both French and English 
in India, gave Clive his opportunity. At Arcot and Trichi- 
nopoli, in the Carnatic, he won victories over Dupleix, who 
in 1752 was recalled to France in disgrace. In 1754, during 
an absence of Clive in England, a native prince of the north 
seized Calcutta and thrust the captives into the garrison room 
of a factory there, — famous thenceforth as the Black Hole 
of Calcutta, — causing the death of a hundred and twenty-five 
men and women. Clive, returning in 1756, took a speedy ven- 
geance on the despot, and in the battle of Plassey,^ June, 1757, 

1 Colby, No. 94; Kendall, No. 117. 



1759] VICTOKIES IN INDIA AND AMERICA. 451 

defeated fifty thousand untrained native troops, and won for 
the British the protectorate of Bengal. This famous event 
gave to the East India Company the control of northeastern 
India. Lally, who was sent out by France to succeed Dupleix, 
failed in all his attempts to restore the supremacy of the 
French ; and finally, in December, 1759, the battle of Wande- 
wash practically ended the struggle in favor of Great Britain. 
In the Carnatic, one fortress after another fell into British 
hands, and at last, in January, 1761, Pondicherry was forced 
to surrender, and the power of the French in India was per- 
manently broken. The responsibility for the loss of India 
rests, not with Labourdonnais, Duplei'X, or Lally, but with the 
scandalously inefficient government of Louis XV. How France 
treated her generals may be inferred from the fact that Labour- 
donnais was thrown into the Bastile, Dupleix died ruined and 
broken-hearted, and Lally was condemned to death. 

In America also success attended British arms. The cam- 
paign of 1755 had ended in the defeat and death of Brad- 
dock; of three expeditions against Canada, only one, that 
against Kew Brunswick, had succeeded, and even that success 
had been marred by the banishment of the inoffensive and 
innocent Acadians from Nova Scotia. In 1758, however, a 
change took place. Pitt thoroughly equipped three expedi- 
tions and placed them under the command of efficient men. 
Amherst, who was sent against Louisburg, captured the fortress, 
July 26, 1758, and obtained control of the island of Breton. 
Forbes took Fort Duquesne on November 25 of the same year. 
And finally, Wolfe, pushing westward from Louisburg, scaled 
the heights of the Plains of Abraham, before Quebec, and on 
September 13, 1759,^ won a great victory over the French 
commander, Montcalm. The surrender of Quebec followed 
five days later, and all Canada fell into the hands of the 
English. Only New Orleans remained to the French in 
America. 

1 Colby, No. 95; Kendall, No. 118. 



452 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1760 

Thus the policy of Pitt, expensive though it was, received 
its full vindication.^ Vast sums of money had been spent in 
equipping armies, in supporting the colonies, and in subsidiz- 
ing Frederick II ; yet Great Britain, in the period of commer- 
cial prosperity that followed, received back ten times as much 
as she had spent. 

316. Accession and Policy of George III. — While these excit- 
ing events were taking place, George II died, and was succeeded 
by his grandson, George III. The new king was a young man 
of twenty-two, who was strongly English in sympathies and 
was thoroughly imbued with a determination to rule as well 
as reign. He was resolved that he would not be held a 
prisoner, as his predecessors had been, by the autocratic Whig 
families who had controlled the government since 1688, but 
would break down the system of cabinet and party government 
that seemed to be limiting the freedom of the king. He pro- 
posed to restore the royal prerogative, to be his own first 
minister, to choose his other ministers himself, and to be the 
guide of his own policy. He had read Bolingbroke's Tlie 
Patriot King, advocating such a kingship, and had seen 
the manuscript of Blackstone's Commentaries, which set forth 
the legal right of the king to rule. But he had no intention 
of restoring the monarchy of the Stuarts, nor did he wish to 
govern without parliament. It was his intention to govern 
with the aid of a party of his own in parliament, one that 
should be bound to him by flattery, bribery, and sentiments 
of loyalty. He saw no reason why he should not buy the 
support of a party in parliament, just as Walpole, Pelham, 
and Newcastle had done ; or why he should not have his party, 
known as the "king's friends," just as each of these ministers 
had controlled a party, known as the "minister's friends." 
In consequence of his efforts to create such a party, there 
arose the new Tories, no longer Jacobites, but Hanoverians, 



iLecky, History of England, Vol. II, pp. 555-565; compare Colby, 
No. 96. 



1763] THE PEACE OF PARIS. 453 

who upheld the king in his purpose of restoring once more 
the royal influence.. 

317. Fall of Pitt. — The first business of George III was to 
get rid of the man whose overshadowing influence was dis- 
tinctly an obstacle in his path. In this attempt fortune 
favored him ; for in the year 1761 such differences of opinion 
had arisen^ regarding the conduct of the war as to lead to a 
split in the ministry. Pitt, desiring to gain new colonial terri- 
tory for England, wished to declare war against Spain, the ally 
of France. But Newcastle refused to support such a policy, 
and on October 5, 1761, Pitt resigned. His place was taken 
by Lord Bute, royal adviser and friend, a man as much hated 
in England as Pitt was beloved. Newcastle remained in the 
ministry. Though nominally the head of the government, he 
was treated with so much contempt and so little courtesy by 
the king that he resigned in May, 1762. Bute then became 
the nominal as well as the real head of the ministry. 

318. The Peace of Paris. ^ — Notwithstanding all his efforts to 
the contrary, Bute was compelled to declare war against Spain 
in 1762; and a brilliant naval campaign, for which Pitt had 
made all the preparations, was carried on. Cuba and other 
islands in the West Indies were taken, Manila in the Philip- 
pine Islands was occupied ; and large amounts of Spanish 
treasure fell into British hands. Bute knew that he was hope- 
lessly incompetent to conduct such a war, and in the face 
of these victories began to negotiate for peace. He refused 
longer to pay subsidies to Frederick II, whom Pitt had aided 
in order to fight France on the Continent as well as at sea, and 
he seemed ready to give up anything if only a peace could be 
arranged. Finally, on February 10, 1763, a treaty of peace was 
signed at Paris. The terms of this treaty, which were justly 
deemed inadequate by the British people, revealed, with start- 
ling distinctness, the expansion that had taken place, since the 
treaty of Utrecht, in British interests and British territory in 

1 American History Leaflets, No. 5; MacDonald, No. 54. 



454 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1763 

the world beyond the seas. Great Britain came into full 
control in America : she received Canada, the islands of the 
St. Lawrence, a confirmation of her right in Nova Scotia 
(Acadia), the valley of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, 
and Florida in exchange for Cuba, which she gave back to 
Spain. Manila, in the Philippines, was also returned to 
Spain. Of the islands in the West Indies, she returned Mar- 
tinique, Guadaloupe, and St. Lucia to France, and retained 
Tobago, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Grenada. No less com- 
plete was the success in India. Though Pondicherry was re- 
stored to France, the French were to have no military control 
in the peninsula and were to confine their interests to a few 
trading stations. 

The treaty of Paris, which marks the highest point of 
colonial power attained by Great Britain in the eighteenth 
century, made her the leading maritime state in the world. 
It roused a great deal of opposition in England, where it was 
deemed an insufficient compensation for Great Britain's many 
and brilliant victories, and greatly increased the unpopularity 
of Bute. But the popular verdict was not wholly just, for 
Great Britain gained much from the treaty and her colonial 
leadership was assured ; moreover, the difficulties connected 
with the task of administering the colonies made rapid ex- 
pansion dangerous ; and the enormous cost of the war and the 
ominous increase of the national debt made peace exceedingly 
desirable. 

319. Awakening of the People: The Religious Revival. — 
Equally significant with the growth of Great Britain's colonial 
empire was the growth of public opinion during these years, 
and the gradual advance of the capitalist and working classes to 
a position of political importance in the kingdom. Commerce 
and trade had given merchants and other moneyed men a new 
interest in political life, and their wealth had made them 
already a power in the state. The middle classes, whether 
represented or not in parliament, were listened to more atten- 
tively than ever before by those who controlled the govern- 



1740] 



THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL. 



455 



ment. But the lower classes, who were without representation 
in any modern sense of the term, had hardly yet begun their 
political career. A great emotional force had, however, been 
at work among them, giving them, to an extent never under- 
stood before, a sense of unity and self-importance. 

A great religious revival, which had begun in Walpole's 
time (1730-1740), had aroused the dull and sodden masses 
from the hopeless leth- 
argy into which they 
had fallen, and had 
served as a rebuke to 
the indifference and in- 
tolerance of the clergy 
of the church of Eng- 
land. Though starting 
as a small movement 
among a few students 
at Oxford, of whom 
John Wesley, a wonder- 
ful preacher and organ- 
izer, his brother, Charles 
Wesley, and George 
Whitefield were the 
leaders, it soon spread 
to the laboring classes, 
— artisans, peasants, 
and miners. Whitefield 
preached with tremen- 
dous power to crowds in the open air, appealing to their sense 
of sin, to their fear of the dangers that threatened their souls, 
and to the hope of the salvation that would follow the godly- 
life. John Wesley preached as did Whitefield^; but, endowed 
as he was with a greater gift for organization, he gathered 
his followers into bauds and societies, and gave form to that 




John Wesley. 
From an old engraving. 



Colby, No. 91. 




[456] 



1763] THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND JOHN WILKES. 457 

ecclesiastical system eventually known as Methodism. Though 
Wesley refused to separate either himself or his organization 
from the church of England, his followers, after his death, in 
1791, broke away from the established church, and became a 
distinct religious body, the Methodists. 

Important as is the Wesleyan movement in the history of 
religious faith, in that it quickened the religious life of the 
other ecclesiastical bodies, yet of even greater importance, at 
the time, was its influence in stirring the lower classes to a 
new social and political activity. It aroused the laborer to a 
new realization of his own individuality, and made him a part 
of a powerful organization. It marks a turning point, there- 
fore, in the history of English democracy. 

320. Public Opinion and the House of Commons : John 
Wilkes. — Public opinion was still in its infancy, but it had 
already played a part in English history. It had compelled 
AValpole to withdraw his excise measure, had forced him into 
the War of Jenkins's Ear, had demanded the execution of 
Admiral Byng, had placed Pitt in the ministry, and, finally, 
had denounced the treaty of Paris. The men who were taking 
part in the great work of winning the empire were feeling 
that they ought to have some share in governing what they 
had won, and were becoming discontented with the narrow, 
selfish, and corrupt methods of the House of Commons. This 
body was largely composed of men who had bought their seats, 
who sold their votes to the highest bidder, and who were con- 
stantly abusing the privileges their predecessors had gained in 
the days of Elizabeth and the Stuarts. They refused to allow 
their debates to be printed, and, with an exaggerated sense of 
their own importance, had become oversensitive to criticism, 
and only too ready to punish any one who affronted their 
dignity. As the king governed through parliament, and was 
able at this time to instigate its policy, the policy of the one 
was in large part the policy of the other. 

On April 8, 1763, Lord Bute resigned, and Grenville took 
his place as secretary of state. Grenville's first act was to 



458 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1769 

prosecute John Wilkes for attacking the king's speech made 
at the prorogation of parliament, on April 23, 1763. Wilkes 
had published his article^ in the North Briton, a paper he had 
founded for the express purpose of attacking Bute and now 
used as a means of attacking Grenville. The government 
determined to crush Wilkes, and caused a general warrant to 
be issued, — that is, a warrant directed against no one in partic- 
ular, — for the arrest of author, printers, and publishers of the 
North Briton. Wilkes became at once a popular hero, and 
when Lord Chief Justice Pratt (Lord Camden), held that the 
warrant was illegal,^ there was great rejoicing. Then the 
House of Commons took the matter in hand and expelled 
Wilkes,^ — a despotic act, which was followed by popular 
demonstrations that amounted almost to riots. Personally, 
Wilkes was not a specially estimable man, for he was loose in 
morals and an adventurer in politics ; but in the eyes of the 
people his persecution by parliament was an attack on the 
liberty of the subject and the freedom of the press, and 
the expressions of popular disapproval showed how little 
sympathy existed, on the part of the people, for the men who 
were supposed to represent them. 

For five years Wilkes continued to suffer at the hands of the 
government, and popular discontent increased. The parlia- 
ment of 1768 was composed of men notoriously bribed."* This 
shameless purchase of a whole body of representatives led to a 
famous protest. The county of Middlesex elected Wilkes as 
its representative by a large majority (1768). The House of 
Commons refused to allow him to take his seat. Again Middle- 
sex returned him (February, 1769). Twice (March and April, 
1769) was this repeated, amid an excitement that stirred 
southern England to its depths. Meetings were held in cities 
and counties, expressing want of confidence in parliament, and 



1 Colby, No. 97 (extract) ; Lee, No. 201 (complete). 

2 Adams and Stephens, Nos. 251, 252. •« Kendall, No. 105. 
8 See debate, Kendall, No. 104. 



1765] POLICY TOWARD THE AMERICAN COLONIES. 459 

opposition to the coercive policy of the government. In 1769, 
" Junius " published his scathing indictment of the adminis- 
tration, and his " letters " had great popularity. In the end, 
public opinion won the victory, and in the next general elec- 
tion, 1774, when Wilkes was for the fifth time elected, he 
was allowed to take his seat. In 1782, parliament erased 
from its journal the resolution passed against him.^ 

321. British Policy toward the American Colonies (1760- 
1774). — While the Grenville ministry was making one mis- 
take in coercing public opinion at home, it was making another 
in attempting to coerce the colonies in America. These 
colonies, since 1713, had made vast strides forward in wealth 
and commercial independence, and had shown themselves 
capable of intelligent self-government. In fact, in their method 
of governing themselves, they were far ahead of the mother 
country. 

The war with France had so extended the national debt of 
G-reat Britain as to make necessary new plans for enlarging 
the revenue of the kingdom. . Grenville therefore proposed, 
in 1763, to increase the customs revenue by enforcing the 
navigation acts, and to raise additional funds by other means. 
The navigation acts had been very lightly enforced for half 
a century, and the colonies had enjoyed what was really com- 
mercial equality with Great Britain. When, therefore, Gren- 
ville proposed to enforce the trade laws, particularly the law 
concerning trade with the West Indies (the Molasses Act), he 
was asking the colonies to assume again a position of com- 
mercial dependence on England. 

More serious still was Grenville's proposal to raise money 
by directly taxing the colonies. In 1765 parliament passed 
the Stamp Act, ^ requiring the colonists to put a stamp on their 
papers and legal documents, and thus created a new grievance. 
The colonists had never doubted the right of parliament to 

1 See the documents in Medley's Constitutional History, pp. 623-626. 

2 MacDonald, No. 67. 



460 



ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. 



[1765 



regulate trade, but they had denied the right of parliament 
to levy an internal tax upon them, claiming that such tax 
should be imposed only by their own assemblies. The Ameri- 

cans probably would not have 

objected to contributing a revenue 
to help pay the cost of the war 
and to support an army in America; 
but they did object to the way the 
revenue was to be raised. As one 
assembly said : " The people of 
this colony are not and from their 
remote situation cannot be repre- 
sented in the j^arliament of Great 
Britain ; and if the principle of 
taxing the colonies without their 
consent should be adopted, the 
people here would be subjected to 
the taxation of two legislatures, a 
grievance unprecedented and not 
to be thought of without anxiety." 
In 1765 George III dismissed 
Grenville from office, not because 
of the Stamp Act, which the king 
ardently supported, but because 
of the way in which the minister 
managed a bill, called the Regency 
Bill, providing for a regent during 
the illness of the king. George III 
appealed to Pitt, who represented 
the small group of Whigs favorably inclined to America, but 
the great commoner was unable to form a government. The 
king was then compelled, greatly against his will, to fall back 
on the other and larger section of the Whigs, and to give the 
government into the hands of Eockingham. The Rockingham 
ministry decided to repeal the Stamp Act, because the mer- 
chants declared that the Americans, by refusing to buy British 




Internal liEVENrE Stamp 
designed for use in 
America. 



1766] POLICY TOWARD THE AMERICAN COLONIES. 461 

goods, were causing a falling off of British trade. In 1766 
the Stamp Act was repealed, but at the same time parliament 
passed a Declaratory Act, asserting its right to tax the col- 
onies. ^ It is not unlikely that Rockingham would have gone 
further and have modified the trade laws, had not the king and 
his friends succeeded in driving him from office. In February, 
1766, Rockingham suffered defeat in parliament and resigned. 

George III then requested Pitt, made earl of Chatham in 
July, 1766, to organize a ministry. Pitt, with Grafton as his 
colleague, succeeded in this task. But the day of Pitt's great- 
ness had passed. He had sacrificed his popularity among the 
people and had lost his influence in the House of Commons 
by accepting a pension and a title ; and owing to his increas- 
ing ill health, he no longer possessed the power to guide the 
policy of the ministry. Grafton became the nominal head of 
the government ; but King George, taking advantage of the 
quarrels among the members of the ministry, was able to 
compel the latter to do very much as he pleased. 

With astonishing disregard of public opinion in the colonies, 
Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the exchequer, pledged 
himself to find a revenue in America. Parliament, at his bid- 
ding, imposed new duties on glass, paper, red and white lead, 
painters' colors, and tea, imported thither. ^ This act only 
increased the discontent in America, without bringing Great 
Britain any adequate return. The revenue obtained was tri- 
fling, and in the case of tea, the tax imposed was less by nine- 
pence than that paid in England. In other words, the 
Americans were asked to pay only half as much a pound for 
their tea as the English were paying for theirs. * The scheme 

1 MacDonald, No. 60. 2 MacDonald, Nos. 63, 64. 

3 The way of it was this: The East India Compauy brought its tea to 
London and there stored it in warehouses. Then they took out what they 
wanted to sell in England, on which they paid twelve pence duty. That which 
they sent to America did not pay the twelve pence duty in England and only 
the three pence duty in America. The company should have paid the twelve 
pence in any part of the British world; but to help the company, which was 
in a bad way financially, the government made this special arrangement. 



462 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1766 

was so foolisli in conception and so badly carried out that it 
cannot be defended from any point of view. It has been 
shown that the attempts made by the British ministers, from 
Grenville to Townshend, to raise a revenue actually cost more 
than was received in return, while Townshend's reckless tamper- 
ing with the spirit of a proud and self-reliant people cost Great 
Britain her colonies. The question as to whether or not Great 
Britain had a right to tax the colonies need not be discussed 
here;^ but certain is it that a policy which benefited nobody 
and which inaugurated a period of humiliation for the British 
people and government can only be condemned. True states- 
manship at all times rises higher than the mere letter of 
the law. 

Townshend died in September, 1767, and Lord North took 
his place as chancellor of the exchequer. All the new duties 
except that on tea were repealed ; but the retention of the tea 
tax counteracted whatever good results might have followed 
the repeal. One tax was as bad as a hundred, for the principle 
involved was the same. The colonists were taking a higher 
stand than before, and were asserting, not only that parlia- 
ment could not tax them because they were unrepresented, but 
also that parliament could not legislate for them at all, in that 
they were the king's colonies and were, therefore, compelled to 
submit to no other authority than that of the crown. Parlia- 
ment had had nothing to say in colonial matters until after the 
revolution of 1688, when it began to assume certain of the 
king's prerogatives ; and this assumption the colonists refused 
to recognize. Grafton, in consequence of the discontent in the 
colonies and of the fierce hostility aroused at home by the 
efforts of parliament to keep Wilkes out of his seat, resigned 
on January 28, 1770, and Lord North became head of the 
ministry. 

322. Beginning of the American War for Independence. — The 
ministry of Lord North, which lasted Jrom 1770 to 1782, is 

1 Lee. No. 204. 



1774] 



BEGINNING OF THE WAR IN AMERICA. 



463 



memorable in that it marks the beginning of that period of 
personal rule on the part of the king which ended in the inde- 
pendence of the American colonies. Whig rule, which had 
lasted half a century, was over; and, though Lord North was 
nominally head of the government, George III was actually 
prime minister and cabinet in one. He was the leader of the 
new Tory party, and he had against him all sections of the 
Whigs, united as never before in his reign. The administration 
of Lord North was a Tory 
administration. 

George III was now per- 
sonal head of a party, as 
well as king, and ready to 
inaugurate a definite policy 
toward America. Up to this 
time, no one seems to have 
had any fixed plan. Gren ville 
and Townshend had done 
little else than make mis- 
takes. At first even the 
cabinet of Lord North was 
undecided. By a majority 
of only one it voted, in March, 
1770, to retain the tax on tea, 
but the news of events in 
America soon stiffened its 
determination. Quarrels be- 
tween British soldiers and 
the colonists had ended in the 
Boston "massacre," March 5, 1770; the sending over of the 
tea ships had ended in rioting in South Carolina, the burning 
of the Gaspee in Rhode Island, and the throwing overboard 
of the tea chests in Boston harbor. The Boston "tea party," 
as it was called, roused the anger of the ministry, which 
was now determined to punish the insolence of the colonists. 
Boston harbor was declared closed, and the charter of Massa- 




LoRD North. 

From the original by Dance, in the col- 
lection of the Hon. Georgiana North. 



464 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1775 

chusetts was annulled.' These acts were equivalent to a 
declaration of war. The adoption of this policy, which made 
reconciliation impossible, was due to the king; but it was 
upheld by the nation, who, surfeited by the victories of the 
Seven Years' War, rejected compromise as humiliating. Yet 
compromise in all probability would have been successful ; for 
the colonists were loyal to the mother country, and at this 
time had expressed no desire to separate themselves from her. 
Active interference was a blunder; but when once it had been 
decided upon by the British government, it should have been 
carried out with thoroughness and despatch. Great Britain 
in 1775 was in no condition to carry on a war in a country 
three thousand miles away. The ministry of Lord North 
drove the colonists into open resistance, at a time when it 
possessed no definite plans for war, little ammunition, an 
inadequate force of soldiers and sailors, and only hired mer- 
cenaries like the Hessians as the chief part of its army. 

In the spring of 1775 British troops in Massachusetts were 
defeated in the battles of Lexington and Concord by the min- 
ute men of that colony. These events roused great excitement 
in America, but need not have led to a war of independence, 
inasmuch as a majority of the colonists, representing the best 
men in America, still hoped for reconciliation and a redress of 
grievances. Pitt, with all the eloquence in his power, was 
urging the ministry to adopt a conciliatory policy, but in vain.^ 
Events both at home and abroad were working against a peace- 
ful settlement of the difficulty. On July 4, 1776, the colonists, 
through their representatives assembled in the second Con- 
tinental Congress at Philadelphia, declared that the colonies 
*• were and of right ought to be free and independent states." 
The war begun at Lexington for redress of grievances ended 
in a struggle for separation from Great Britain. 

Under George Washington as commander-in-chief, the war 
continued for a year without definite results for either side. 

1 MacDonald, Nos. 68, 69. « Kendall, No. 119. 



1777] INTERVENTION OF FRANCE. 465 

Finally, at Saratoga, on October 17, 1777, Sir John Burgoyne, 
pushing down from Canada to cooperate with the British forces 
under Howe in Philadelphia, was compelled to surrender with 
his whole force. This momentous event was the turning- 
point in the war, and was due in part, at least, to the fact that 
Howe had received no instructions to meet Burgoyne. This 
fatal mistake is said to have been due to the neglect of the 
colonial secretary of state, Lord George Germain, who failed to 
sign the despatches.* 

323. Intervention of France. — The surrender at Saratoga 
gave the enemies of Great Britain an opportunity to take their 
revenge upon her. France, smarting under the defeats of the 
Seven Years' War and ready to take advantage of any favor- 
able opportunity of renewing the struggle, sent Lafayette with 
troops to aid Washington, and a fleet under D'Estaing to the 
West Indies in February, 1778. So menacing did the danger 
appear that Lord North declared he was ready to grant the 
colonies almost everything they wanted except independence. 
Parliament restored the Massachusetts charter and repealed 
the tax on tea. It appointed commissioners to go to America 
to promise amnesty to all and the suspension of all acts relat- 
ing to America passed since 1763. The commissioners actually 
went farther, and promised that no more British troops should 
be sent to America, and that the colonies should have repre- 
sentation in the British parliament. 

But it was too late. The colonial war had now become a 
part of the larger struggle between Great Britain and France, 
and the colonists stood by their ally. In 1779 Spain joined 
the coalition. In 1780 Eussia, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden 
formed the Armed Neutrality League, for the purpose of 
defending the rights of neutrals, that is, of those not engaged 
in war on either side. They were determined to resist the 



1 This is the reason given by Lord Shelbarne, one of the chief opponents of 
Lord North and his American policy. Fitz-Maurice, Life of Shelburne, VoL 
I, p. 358. 



466 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1781 

contention of Great Britain that her ships had a right to seize 
an enemy's goods even when on a neutral vessel. This danger 
of war with half of Europe had a very sobering effect on the 
North ministry and the king. The Whig opposition was daily 
growing stronger, though opinion was divided as to what was 
the best course to pursue. Chatham had made his last great 
speech in parliament against the dismemberment of the em- 
pire; others were expressing a willingness to grant indepen- 
dence to the colonies. All controversy was cut short by the 
great victory of the French and Americans at Yorktown, Octo- 
ber 19, 1781, where Cornwallis and his army surrendered. 

The year 1781 was one of depression and despair in Eng- 
land. The people vented their wrath on Lord North and held 
him responsible for the corruption at headquarters and for the 
war in America. The general elections of 1780 had shown 
that public opinion was awakening, and the new parliament 
proved very difficult for the king to manage. On March 4, 
1782, Conway brought forward his famous resolution against 
a further prosecution of the war in America, and on the 20th 
Lord North resigned. The new ministry, made up of both 
sections of the Whigs, was led by Rockingham of the old sec- 
tion, and after his death in July, by Shelburne, the ally and 
successor of Chatham. The period of the personal rule of 
King George was over and the independence of the colonies 
was now assured.^ 

324. Treaty of Peace (1783).^ — So discouraging was the out- 
look for England when negotiations for peace began, that it 
seemed at first as if she would be stripped of many of her colo- 
nial possessions. But a victory by Rodney, in 1782, over De 
Grasse, off Guadeloupe in the West Indies, and a successful 
British defence of Gibraltar against the Spaniards in the same 



1 Kendall, No. 121. 

2 The treaty between Great Britain and the United States was signed at 
Paris on the same day that treaties between Great Britain and France and 
Great Britain and Spain were signed at Versailles. MacDonald's Select Docu- 
ments of United States History, No. 3. 



1788] COLONIAL ACQUISITIONS IN THE PACIFIC. 467 

year, changed the situation, and England was in the main able 
to hold her own. By the treaty with the United States signed 
at Paris, in January, 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the 
independence of her chief American colonies ; but she retained 
Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. She gave back 
Florida to Spain, who, possessing the Louisiana territory by 
cession from France in the treaty of 1763, now shut in the 
new republic on the south and west. Great Brrtain also 
returned St. Lucia and Tobago of the West Indies to France, 
and was compelled, most unwillingly, to consent to Spain's 
retention of Minorca and the cession to France of Senegal and 
the island of Goree in Africa. But for Rodney's victory, 
Great Britain would probably have lost all her West India 
colonies ; as it was, she kept everything except Tobago. Her 
escape was a narrow one. 

325. New Colonial Acquisitions in the Pacific. — Save for the 
loss of the American colonies, Great Britain had emerged from 
the war with little diminution of territory ; and that little 
was to be in a measure made up in new acquisitions elsewhere. 
It is an interesting coincidence that at the very time of the 
American war Captain Cook should have been making his 
three famous voyages into the South Seas and discovering 
New Zealand and Australia, of which he took possession in 
the name of King George. Perhaps not since the days of 
Elizabeth had English explorers been more active than in the 
years from 1770 to 1815. From Vancouver Island and Puget 
Sound to Van Dieman's Land, they were laying the foundation 
for a wide extension of colonial territory. In 1788 the settle- 
ment of New South Wales began, and Australia, New Zea- 
land, Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania), the New Hebrides, Fiji, 
and other islands became centres of new British activity in the 
Pacific. 

But the new possessions were not to be treated as England 
had treated the American colonies, that is, as merely sources 
of supply for the mother country. From this time forward 
the old colonial systeraj characterized by navigation acts and 



468 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1771 

restrictive measures, ceased to exist in fact, thougli not in law. 
This change came about, not only because of the lesson taught 
by the devolution, but also because the old system had out- 
lived its usefulness. The economist who did more than any 
one else to show that the old, or " mercantile," system was an 
injury rather than a benefit to England, was Adam Smith. 
In the same year (1776) that the Americans by their Declara- 
tion of Independence were protesting against the old British 
colonial system, Adam Smith, in his WealtJi of Nations, was 
demonstrating the futility of the system by an appeal to facts 
and figures. 

326. Reforms at Home. — Although, in reality, the old colo- 
nial policy of Great Britain was responsible for the loss of the 
American colonies, there were other and more direct causes 
to which attention has already been called. These were the 
interference of George III, the second-rate and blundering 
statesmanship of his ministers, the corruption that pervaded 
all the of&ces of government and filled parliament with place- 
men and partisans. Great Britain from 1761 to 1783 was 
governed by weak and commonplace men, the representatives 
of influential families, who managed well enough when affairs 
went smoothly, but who were hopelessly inefficient in a great 
crisis like that through which England had just passed. 

Some reforms had already been made. In 1771 the practice 
of secret deliberation in parliament had been given up, and the 
publication of debates, though not officially allowed, was no 
longer followed by attempts to arrest and imprison the printer. 
Thenceforth the public knew what was being said in the 
House of Commons. Twenty years later (1792), Fox's libel 
law ^ aided still further the free expression of opinion, by giv- 
ing to a jury the decision as to whether or not an article was a 
libei. Toward the close of the American war, public opinion 
was aroused against the entire system of bribery and corrup- 
tion, and from 1779 to 1781 public meetings were held to 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 256. 



1782J 



CORRUPTION OF PARTIES. 



469 



protest against an administration that was bringing humilia- 
tion upon England. Popular sentiment found expression in 
Dunning's famous resolution of April, 1780, " That the influ- 
ence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be 
diminished." ^ 

In the same year Edmund Burke, the greatest of England's 
orators and a loyal friend of the colonies, brought in an elabo- 
rate scheme for economic 
reform, which was designed 
to do away with useless 
offices and to prevent waste, 
jobbery, and peculation in 
every department. It 

failed to pass in 1780, but 
in 1782 was put through 
in modified form by the 
Rockingham ministry. By 
this measure some forty or 
.fifty thousand revenue offi- 
cers were forbidden to vote 
in the elections; forty or 
more offices, such as that 
of the king's turnspit, for 
example, were abolished ; 
the pension list was cur- 
tailed; the secret service 
fund was cut down; and colonial officials were no longer 
allowed to hold their positions by deputy or for life. In this 
way £72,000 were saved annually to the government, and the 
king's patronage was materially diminished. 

327. Corruption of Parties. — This reform, important though 
it was, scarcely touched the real evil of parliamentary and 
political corruption. The government was in the hands of 
an oligarchy, which governed in its own interest, with but 




Edmund Burke. 
After a painting by George Romney. 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 254; Kendall, No 107. 



470 



ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. 



[1783 



slight regard for the welfare of the people at large or for the 
progress of the country. 

The high-water mark of intrigue and ambition was reached 
in 1783, when the Tories, led by Lord North, allied themselves 
with the old Whigs to retain power and to curtail the in- 
fluence of the king. The old Whigs were led by Charles 
James Fox, one of England's greatest debaters and ablest men, 
but a statesman passionate and impulsive, and possessed of 
but little foresight. The coalition ministry brought matters to 

a crisis. As Lord E-osebery 
says : " The country was 
sick of its old lot — the 
politicians who had fought 
and embraced and intrigued 
and jobbed among them- 
selves, with the result of 
landing Great Britain in 
an abyss of disaster and 
discomfiture. There was 
something rotten in the 
state, and the rottenness 
seemed to begin in the 
politicians." ^ Against the 
coalition, George III fought 
with all the resources at 
his command; and when, 
in December, 1783, the 




Charles James Fox. 

From an engraving by Jones after 
a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 



House of Lords defeated 
Fox's bill for the better government of India, he called for 
the resignation of the ministry. Within twelve hours he 
had placed the government in the hands of William Pitt, son 
of the earl of Chatham. 

328. Rise of the Younger Pitt. — Pitt, when but twenty-one 
years old, had made his maiden speech in defending Burke's 



iRosebery, Pitt, pp. 58-60. 



1784] EARLY YEARS OF PITT'S ADMINISTRATION. 471 

reform bill, and now, at the age of twenty-five, was prime 
minister. At the outset of his ministry he won popular 
approval by his single-handed contest with the old leaders of 
parliament — Fox, Burke, and North — and by his refusal to 
accept pensions or sinecures. The struggle lasted for three 
months. Pitt was defeated regularly in the House of Com- 
mons, but refused to resign. Fox injured his cause and that 
of the coalition ministry by opposing a dissolution of parlia- 
ment and by declaring that Pitt ought to resign. But the ob- 
stinacy of Fox cost him the support of parliament. Honorable 
members, who admired Pitt's courage, and placemen, who 
wanted to be on the winning side, began to desert the old cause. 
Finally, on March 24, 1784, after three months' patient waiting, 
Pitt was able to obtain a vote to dissolve. At once new elections 
were ordered. These proved favorable to him, and he became 
the centre of authority and the absolute head of the government.^ 

329. Early Years of Pitt's Administration. — Pitt was con- 
fronted by a task of herculean proportions, and was able to do 
but little to improve the political condition of England. How 
much he would have accomplished, had not the best years 
of his life been spent in guiding his country through one of 
her greatest wars, no one can say. It was his misfortune, not 
his fault, that his name is connected with no great reform 
measure. His name is associated with the French Eevolution 
and with Napoleon Bonaparte ; yet he was by nature a re- 
former, a lover of peace, a friend of enlightened progress. 
Many reform measures that he advocated failed to pass in his 
day ; but they are worthy of consideration, in that they are 
characteristic of the man and anticipated many of the changes 
that came about during the next century. 

In the interest of the finances of the kingdom, Pitt checked 

1 The usual view that these elections represented a vigtory of public opinion 
over corrupt political leaders has been controverted by Laprade in E. H. R., 
April, 1916, who, basing his argument on new documentary material, contends 
that this election, like all elections before 1832, was the result of intrigue and 
manipulation. 



472 



ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. 



[1784 




smuggling, increased the revenue by distributing taxation more 
evenly, refused to allow favoritism in public loans, and origi- 
nated a masterly scheme for the redemption of the national 
debt. He concluded an advantageous commercial treaty with 

France, and sought to give Ireland 
equal commercial privileges with 
England. He brought in three 
measures for a reform of parlia- 
ment, proposing the gradual aboli- 
tion of petty boroughs and the 
transfer of these seats to great 
cities like London, — measures 
which, like the Irish bill, were de- 
feated in parliament. He showed 
himself in full sympathy with 
Clarkson and Wilberforce, who 
were trying to abolish the slave 
trade ; with Whitbread, who wished 
to improve the condition of the 
poor; and with others, who were 
attempting to establish a system of popular education. But 
all the efforts he made in these directions were premature and 
unsuccessful. 

330. Pitt and the Government of India : Warren Hastings. — 
While able to deal with the minutiae of domestic reform, Pitt 
had a mind broad enough to grasp also the intricate problems 
of empire. Eor twenty years the great question of the govern- 
ment of India had been before the country. As formerly in 
some of the American colonies, so in India, a trading company 
was in control. But the great opportunities for wealth and 
power that India furnished gave the East India Company an 
influence and a position that no company ever obtained else- 
where. In 1773 ' a regulating act had been passed by parlia- 
ment, to check abuses; and Warren Hastings had been sent 
out as the first governor-general under the act. During Hast- 
ing's governorship, Fox had brought in a bill for the better 



William Pitt, the Younger. 
From the portrait by Hoppner. 



1788] TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS. 473 

government of India, placing the company under the control 
of the British government; but it failed of passage, owing 
to the opposition of the king. In 1784 Pitt framed a measure 
which left commercial matters in the hands of the company, 
but gave political control to the British government. Under 
this system India was governed till 1858. 

In 1785 Hastings, after thirteen years of efficient service, 
returned to England, and was immediately confronted with 
charges of maladministration, cruelty, and corruption in deal- 
ing with the native princes of India. That he had used 
methods unsanctioned in civilized countries, in order to further 
conquest and control, there is no doubt ; but how far civilized 
standards ought to govern a conqueror in his treatment of a 
half-civilized people was then, and is now, a matter of dispute.* 
Burke attacked Hastings with all the fire of his eloquence; 
and Pitt, on the ground that the acts of public servants should 
be kept under strict scrutiny, sustained the prosecution. In 
1787 Hastings was impeached and tried before the House of 
Lords.^ The malevolence of Hastings's enemies and the oratory 
of Burke exaggerated the importance of the trial at the time ; 
while the matchless rhetoric of Macaulay unduly magnified 
the whole affair in the century that followed. Hastings was 
eventually acquitted on all the charges brought against him. 

331. Foreign Affairs: the Revolution in France. — Though 
Pitt was essentially a peace minister, a student of financial and 
social problems, and a promoter of reforms, he was, after four 
years of service, confronted with foreign difficulties that com- 
pelled him to drop permanently his reform schemes. At first 
he resolutely refused to be entangled in foreign affairs. In 
1787 he joined with Prussia to compel the Dutch republicans 
to take back their stadtholder, whom they had driven from the 
country ; and in 1790 he arranged peacefully with Spain a con- 
troversy over settlements at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. 



1 For a letter of Hastings, defending his course, see Lee, No. 230. 

2 Compare Kendall, No. 122. 



474 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1789 

But greater issues were already becoming prominent. In 1789 
the estates-general of France had met for the first time since 
1614, and at once that great revolution began which was to 
overthrow the power of the French nobility, to bring about 
the death of King Louis XVI, and to establish the first re- 
public in France. 

At first many persons in England greeted the movement 
with satisfaction, believing that it would result in the over- 
throw of tyranny and the establishment of liberty. A Eevolu- 
tion Society was formed^ in England; and Fox, overwrought 
with a love of liberalism, applauded the actors in the great 
tragedy. But Burke saw with alarm the overthrow of the 
old institutions, and in his Reflectioyis on the French Revolution 
viewed the future with grave apprehensions.^ Pitt, agreeing 
with Burke rather than with Fox, continued his efforts to 
avoid war, and until 1792 was successful. But the policy of 
the French revolutionists rendered his efforts of no avail. In 
1792 the Girondists, leaders of the French Legislative Assem- 
bly, declared war on Europe. The events of the war that 
followed led to an increase of revolutionary fever in Paris, 
which ended in massacres in the city (September, 1792), the 
proclamation of the republic (September, 1792), and the execu- 
tion of the king (January, 1793).^ These events made it im- 
possible for Pitt to maintain a peace policy any longer. The 
excitement in England, due to the attack on monarchy by the 
French republicans, was increased by the decrees passed in 
November, 1792, by the National Convention, — that body 
which succeeded the Legislative Assembly in France, — fiercely 
attacking the institutions of all monarchical countries and 
threatening war for the overthrow of kingdoms and the 
establishment of republics wherever possible. The execution 
of Louis XVI sent a thrill of horror throughout England. 



1 Colby, No. 104. 2 Kendall, No. 123. 

3 For documents illustrating the French Revolution, see Translations and 
Reprints, Vol. I, No. 5 (Robinson, " The French Revolution, 1789-1791 ")• 



1797] WAR OF THE FiRgT COALITION. 475 

Whigs were silenced, and even Fox considered it a revolting 
act of cruelty and injustice. But before the Pitt ministry 
could take any step, the Convention itself had declared war 
against England (February 1, 1793). 

The First Coalition consisted at first of Austria and Prussia. 
War began in 1792, and in 1793 Great Britain and Holland 
entered the alliance. Holland was conquered by the French 
and transformed into the Batavian Republic in 1795 ; in the 
same year Prussia signed the treaty of Basel and withdrew 
from the coalition. Austria fought on till 1797, when the 
treaty of Campo-Formio was agreed upon. Great Britain 
alone remained. Her share in the war consisted in sending 
money and troops to the Continent, and in employing her navy 
to blockade French harbors and to seize the vessels and the colo- 
nies of France and her allies, Spain and the Batavian Republic. 
Her efforts on land were largely unsuccessful. The siege of 
Toulon (1793), a port in the Mediterranean that Great Britain 
desired to make the base of further operations for the restora- 
tion of the French monarchy, was defeated by the skill of 
Captain Napoleon Bonaparte and the courage of the French 
soldiers. Great Britain was also unsuccessful in her attempts 
to help the royalists by an expedition to Quiberon Bay (1795), 
and to support the Corsican patriots by despatching troops to 
Corsica. At sea she made a better record. Howe defeated the 
French fleet off Brest in 1794 ; Jervis crippled the Spanish fleet 
by a victory off Cape St. Vincent in 1797; and Duncan restored 
the prestige of the navy and checked a projected invasion of 
Ireland by the defeat of the Dutch at Camperdown, October 
11, 1797. In the world beyond the seas, Great Britain cap- 
tured the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon from the Batavian 
Republic in 1795 and 1796, and Trinidad from Spain in 1797. 

332. Effect of the Revolution on England. — The revolution 
and the war checked England's progress and brought to an 
end Pitt's efforts at reform. The nobility and the aristocratic 
families, fearing that republican ideas would take root in 
England, sternly repressed every proposal to extend the 



476 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1778 

•franchise or to increase in any way the power of the people. 
Even. Pitt himself, in 1792, refused to consider further 
measures for reforming parliament. Anticipating a revolution 
in England, parliament twice suspended the Habeas Corpus 
Act,^ passed laws against foreigners, checked the freedom of 
public discussion, and punished severely all who protested 
against the laws. An attempt to kill George III (1795) was 
followed by restrictive measures forbidding all speech against 
the king, and controlling public meetings and the right of dis- 
cussion. The period from 1792 to 1815 in England was one 
of reaction and repression. 

333. Union with Ireland. — Next to the war with France, no 
question at this time was of greater moment than that of Eng- 
land's relations with Ireland. The conditions that followed 
the peace of Limerick had become intolerable to the natives 
of Ireland, and they had come to hate the ruling classes. 
Only a fourth of the Irish possessed political privileges, and 
the parliament that governed them was representative not even 
of that fourth. 

Before the American Ee volution the Irish had been sullen, 
but after that event they became openly rebellious. The 
Protestants, who desired an increase of parliamentary inde- 
pendence and a measure of commercial privilege, had organized 
in 1778 the Patriotic party, under the leadership of Flood and 
Grattan, and had sought to conciliate the Koman Catholics by 
repealing some of the worst of the penal laws. They had 
demanded of England free trade and a free parliament. Lord 
North, involved in the American war, had made a few com- 
mercial concessions in 1779; and in 1782 Eockingham had 
freed the Irish parliament from the control of the English 
government. In 1785 Pitt had come forward with a new 
plan, whereby he hoped " to unite the two countries on some 
sure basis of commercial intercourse and common interest." 
But the English parliament had rejected his proposals. 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 257. 



1800] ACT OF UNION WITH IRELAND. 477 

The Irish were, therefore, in a condition of mind to be 
deeply affected by the French Revolution. Some desired an 
alliance with France, others the entire overthrow of British 
control and the establishment of an Irish republic, while 
nearly all demanded the reform of the Irish parliament. Pitt 
wished to give the E-oman Catholics representation in the 
Irish parliament, and sent over Lord Fitzwilliam to check 
rebellion and to strengthen the Irish government by granting 
Eoman Catholics political privileges. But Fitzwilliam failed 
in his mission, largely because George III refused to sanction 
any measure which would give political power into the hands 
of the Eoman Catholics. In consequence of this failure the 
Irish determined to obtain independence by revolution. In 
1796, and again in 1797, the French endeavored to help them 
by sending troops to their aid. In 1798 the revolution had 
attained such proportions that a veritable reign of terror ensued 
in the island, and it became evident to all that the British 
government must take definite action. 

Pitt came to the conclusion that the only remedy for Irish 
discontent was the parliamentary union of Ireland with Great 
Britain. Therefore, he obtained from the Irish parliament, by 
corrupt means if not by direct bribery of the members, a 
vote favorable to his scheme. On July 21, 1800, the Act of 
Union was passed ^ and Ireland became a part of the United 
Kingdom. The Irish cross was added to the Union Jack; 
and after January, 1801, four bishops, twenty peers, and one 
hundred Irish members sat in the Houses of Parliament at 
Westminster. 

334. War with France : the Second Coalition. — In 1797 Great 
Britain desired peace with France, and Pitt entered into nego- 
tiations at Lille in that year for the purpose of ending the war. 
But the negotiators could not agree on the terms. A financial 
crisis had just occurred in London, and a mutiny had taken 
place among British seamen at The Nore. The French com- 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 258; Lee, Nos. 206-208. 



478 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1797 

missioners, believing that Great Britain was exhausted, refused 
to allow her to retain Trinidad and the Cape, and proposed to 
take Gibraltar, the Channel Islands, and perhaps a part of 
Newfoundland, — concessions that Great Britain would not for 
a moment listen to. Therefore the war went on, but under 
new conditions. 

The general of the French army in Italy was now Napoleon 
Bonaparte, who, after a series of magnificent victories, had 
forced Austria to sign the treaty of Campo-Formio (1797). 
After the campaign in Italy, Bonaparte became the real direc- 
tor of the French policy, and soon showed that his chief object 
was to compass the overthrow of Great Britain. To accomplish 
this object he formed three plans of attack, any or all of which 
might be brought into use: (1) to invade England directly; 

(2) to attack her on the Continent by depriving her of Hanover ; 

(3) "to undertake an eastern expedition which would menace 
her trade with the Indies." * Inasmuch as only the last of 
these plans seemed practicable at that time, Bonaparte set out 
for Egypt in 1797, to force Great Britain to a peace, by destroy- 
ing her eastern commerce. He seems to have had in mind also 
the restoration of French supremacy in India, by means of an 
alliance with Tippoo Sahib, son of Hyder Ali, with whom 
Warren Hastings had warred for four years. But his elaborate 
undertaking ended in disaster. His fleet was annihilated by 
the British admiral, Horatio Nelson, in the battle of the Nile, 
August 1 , 1798,^ a victory which cut off Bonaparte from France 
and won for England the control of the Mediterranean. At 
St. John Acre, in Syria, the British general, Sydney Smith, 
checked the advance of Bonaparte and compelled him to be 
satisfied with establishing French control in Egypt. 

During the absence of Bonaparte, Russia and Austria formed 
with Great Britain the Second Coalition and renewed the war. 
Bonaparte returned from Egypt in 1799, and overthrowing the 
government of the Directory, made himself, as First Consul, 



1 Rose, Napoleon /, Vol. I, p. 161. « Colby, No. 107. 



1801] THE PEACE OF AMIENS. 479 

the head of the French state. In this position he was able 
more vigorously than ever to carry on the war with the Second 
Coalition; for a single head is always more powerful in war 
and diplomacy than a board of directors or a ministry depend- 
ent on parliament. In 1800 he overwhelmed Austria in the 
battles of Hohenlinden and Marengo, and in 1801 forced her to 
sign the treaty of Luneville. Russia had already withdrawn 
from the coalition, disgusted by the conduct of her allies and 
jealous of Austria. Great Britain alone remained, and Bona- 
parte seemed powerless to injure her. She maintained her 
hold on Malta and the Mediterranean and finally won back 
Egypt. She checked all Bonaparte's attempts to aid the 
revolt in Ireland, and by winning the battle of Copenhagen, 
April 2,- 1801, obtained the mastery of the Baltic. Bonaparte 
was master on the land, but Great Britain was still mistress 
of the sea. 

335. The Peace of Amiens. — In 1801 both France and Eng- 
land desired a cessation of hostilities. Bonaparte wished to 
restore order in France, to organize the government there, and 
to prepare for the gigantic struggle for empire that he knew 
was before him. Great Britain was equally willing to have 
peace. Her people were passing through an industrial revolu- 
tion which was unsettling the economic condition of the coun- 
try. Population and wealth were increasing, towns were 
growing, workmen were shifting their occupation from the 
cottage to the factory, employment was becoming uncertain, 
the poor were suffering, and on every hand new economic and 
social problems were arising. The national debt had increased 
to more than £500,000,000. Ireland was not yet reconciled to 
the Act of Union, and time was needed to improve the condi- 
tions in that island. In February, 1801, Pitt had resigned, 
because George III had positively refused to consider any 
measure whereby the Eoman Catholics in England might be 
granted political rights ; and a Whig ministry, with Addington 
at its head, had come into power. By an irony of fate, this 
commonplace and nerveless leader, a minister at the king's 



480 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1802 

command, was called upon to conduct the foreign affairs of 
Great Britain at one of the most critical periods in the history 
of the war. Once more the influence of the king was to have 
a disastrous effect on England's politics. 

After many negotiations during the year 1801, prelimi- 
naries of peace were agreed upon in London, October 1. The 
Addington ministry gave way on almost every important 
point. Great Britain restored to France, Spain, and the Bata- 
vian Bepublic all that she had taken from them, retaining only 
Trinidad and Ceylon. Egypt was restored to Turkey, and 
Malta was promised to the former owners, the Knights of St. 
John, under the protection of a third power, a clause which was 
modified later to read, " under the protection of the European 
powers." Great Britain restored all ports and islands that she 
held in the Adriatic and Mediterranean; and to complete this 
exhibition of amiability, George III threw in the title of ''King 
of France," which he and his predecessors had borne since 1340.^ 

In arranging these preliminaries Bonaparte scored a great 
diplomatic victory. " The only British gains after nine years 
of warfare, fruitful in naval triumphs, but entailing an addition 
of £290,000,000 to the national debt, were the islands of 
Trinidad and the Dutch possessions in Ceylon." ^ The formal 
treaty, differing in but few particulars from the preliminaries 
already agreed upon, was signed at Amiens, on* March 25, 1802. 

336. Rupture of the Peace : The Colonial Policy of Napoleon. — 
Great Britain's best excuse for the treaty of Amiens was that 
it seemed to bring the peace that she so sorely needed. " It 
was a peace," says Sheridan, " that nobody would be proud of, 
but everybody would be glad of." Yet before eight months 
had passed, the British ministry knew that the peace could not 
be kept. By this treaty, France had regained all her lost 
colonies, and Napoleon^ was determined to make these the 

1 For illustrations of the royal arms, see Gardiner, Students' History of 
England, pp. 239, 482, 844. 2 Rose, Napoleon I, Vol. I, p. 290. 

8 After he became consul for life, Bonaparte generally used his Christian 
name, as was customary with monarchs. 



1802] RUPTURE OF THE PEACE OF AMIENS. 481 

basis of a new colonial empire to take the place of that which 
G-reat Britain had destroyed in the Seven Years' War.^ 

No sooner had the treaty been signed than Napoleon under- 
took to carry out his plan : (1) he reestablished the authority 
of France in Haiti in 1802, and made that place a base of 
operations in the West Indies ; (2) he prepared an expedition to 
New Orleans, called upon Spain to issue an order closing the 
lower Mississippi to vessels of the United States, and demanded 
the transfer of the Louisiana territory to France ; (3) he sent 
General Decaen to India to recover French control there 
(1802); and (4) for the purpose of claiming Australia for 
France, he planned to make use of a scientific expedition that 
had been sent to the island continent in 1800. This scheme 
was a grand one, even for Napoleon, and had it succeeded 
would have created a colonial empire for France that might 
have rivalled that of Great Britain. 

But it did not succeed. The expedition to Haiti and St. 
Domingo failed, for twenty officers and thirty thousand men 
died in the fever swamps of those islands. Thereupon 
Napoleon abandoned the expedition to New Orleans, and sold 
Louisiana, in 1803, to the United States for $15,000,000, thus 
giving up his plan of a French empire in the western world. 
In the East he was no more successful. The attempt to annex 
Australia came to nothing, because British explorers had already 
claimed the island by right of first discovery, and were in actual 
possession of the coast. Before General Decaen and his fleet 
could reach India, war had broken out in Europe; and Sir 
Arthur Wellesley at Calcutta, by victories at Assaye and 
Argaum over the Mahrattas, rendered ineffectual any attempts 
of the French to recover their influence there. 

In 1802 the British ministers began to suspect that Napoleon 
was preparing to cripple Great Britain by striking at her colo- 
nies and her commerce. They watched with suspicion his 
attempt to exclude from France British manufactures, such as 

1 Rose, Napoleon I, Vol. I, pp. 328-329; Chap. XV. 



482 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1803 

hardware, cotton, and woollen goods ; and they learned with 
great uneasiness of his various colonial enterprises. They 
believed that he would seize Malta in order to control the 
Mediterranean; possibly attack Turkey, regain Egypt, and, 
with the Cape of Good Hope in his possession, overthrow the 
East India Company in India. It is hardly surprising that 
the Addington ministry, holding these suspicions, should have 
refused to give up Malta, in accordance with the treaty of 
Amiens, on the technical ground that Russia and Austria had 
not guaranteed the safety of the island, as by the terms of the 
treaty they were bound to do. Napoleon was enraged when 
he heard of Great Britain's refusal, and charged the British 
government with having broken the treaty. So strained had 
become the relations between France and Great Britain by 
May, 1803, that the Addington ministry, acknowledged by all 
to be too weak to cope with the situation, resigned, and Pitt 
was recalled as prime minister. On May 20 war was formally 
declared. 

337. Renewal of War: Attempt of Napoleon to invade England. 
— The regret that the nation felt at the renewal of war gave 
way at this juncture to a desire for revenge. Four days after 
war had been declared. Napoleon ordered that all Englishmen 
in France, between eighteen and sixty years of age, ten thou- 
sand in number, should be held as prisoners of war. By this 
unwarranted act he expressed his anger at the disturbance of 
his plans. There is reason to think that he wished to delay war 
for a year or two longer, until his navy should be ready, and 
his expedition to India and the South Seas should have accom- 
plished its work. Had he possessed a fleet equal to that of 
Great Britain, he would have struck the first blow himself by 
invading England or Ireland. But Great Britain's declaration 
of war took him unprepared and threw his plans into disorder. 

Nothing daunted, however. Napoleon entered the struggle 
with undiminished ardor, and by his own enthusiasm aroused 
the enthusiasm of France against "perfidious Albion." In 
Great Britain the war fever rose to the highest pitch. Vol- 



1803] NAPOLEON'S ATTEMPT TO INVADE ENGLAND. 483 

unteer regiments were equipped, coast defence was completed, 
and the navy began a running attack on French ports and seized 
the best of the French islands in the West Indies. Not content 
with these measures, the British government gave aid to con- 
spiracies and plots against Napoleon. It paid money to further 
a famous plot of Cadoudal, which not only failed of its chief 
purpose, the assassination of Napoleon, but led to an act of 
retaliation, the execution of the innocent royalist, the duke of 
Enghien, — one of Napoleon's greatest blunders. All these 
conspiracies came to nothing, and in 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte 
was crowned emperor of the French as Napoleon I. 

For a year Napoleon had been massing his forces at Bou- 
logne for an invasion of England. But to cross the channel 
with an army demanded possession of that strait for the full 
time of the passage ; and to obtain such possession it became 
necessary to get a part of the British fleet out of the way. 
For this purpose Napoleon despatched Admiral Villeneuve to 
the West Indies, that the latter might draw off Nelson's 
squadron in pursuit. Villeneuve, having accomplished his 
purpose, was to return with all speed, leaving Nelson behind, 
and after picking up the Spanish vessels, was to take up his 
station off Brest. It was hoped that the French fleet, out- 
numbering the remaining British ships under Admirals Calder 
and Cornwallis, would be able to guard the channel. But the 
plan miscarried. Villeneuve sailed for the West Indies and 
Nelson followed him. But on his return, the French admiral 
was confronted off Cape Finisterre by a part of the British 
squadron under Calder, and compelled to engage in a battle, 
on July 22, 1805, which seriously crippled him. Deeming 
this a sufficient misfortune to warrant delay, Villeneuve, 
instead of pushing on to the channel, turned back, and sought 
the harbor of Cadiz. Napoleon waited for him in vain at 
Boulogne ; all hope of an invasion of England vanished ; and 
the second attempt to overthrow Great Britain ended in failure. 

338. War of the Third Coalition. — In the meantime Kussia 
and Austria, enraged at Napoleon's continued insults on the 



484 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1805 

Continent, had made an alliance with England and formed the 
Third Coalition. Kussia, poor as always, asked for British 
subsidies, which were rather unwillingly furnished; and 
Austria, hoping to find Napoleon entangled in his naval pro- 
jects, pushed on her own preparations with great eagerness. 
Thus not only Great Britain, but Eussia and Austria, the two 
greatest land powers, were ranged against Napoleon. But he, 
undaunted by his failure at Boulogne, turned with lightning 
rapidity on Austria and crushed her in the siege of Ulm (Octo- 
ber 11) and the battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805). But 
fortune refused to favor him at sea and in the colonies. On 
October 21, Admiral Nelson met the French and Spanish fleets 
off Cape Trafalgar and came off victor in one of the greatest 
sea-fights in history. The battle of Trafalgar destroyed for- 
ever Napoleon's hopes of winning control of the ocean, and, 
taken in conjunction with the victories of Wellesley in India, 
marked a new era in the growth of the British empire. 

Trafalgar placed the colonial possessions of the French, 
Dutch, and Spanish at the mercy of Great Britain, but cost her 
the life of Nelson, her greatest admiral, who was mortally 
wounded in the fight. Three months afterward Great Britain 
lost her greatest statesman of the period. On January 23, 

1806, Pitt died, worn out with the cares and anxieties of the 
war. He was succeeded by a coalition ministry under Fox 
and Grenville, known as the " Ministry of all the Talents." 

339. The Continental System. — Napoleon was gradually win- 
ning control of the Continent: Austria in 1805, Prussia in 1806, 
and Russia in 1806 and 1807, fell before his military genius ; 
and when he made a treaty with the Czar Alexander I, in 

1807, he seemed to be master of the fortunes of western 
Europe. But every effort to crush Great Britain had failed ; 
and now, with the power of the Continent behind him, he 
determined to make one more mighty effort to destroy her. 
Believing that the strength of Great Britain lay in her com- 
merce, he determined to ruin her by excluding her goods from 
France and all the other states of Europe that would obey him. 



1807] THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM. 485 

In a decree issued from Berlin, May 16, 1806, he declared 
that the British Isles were in a state of blockade, and he 
threatened to seize the ships of any country that traded with 
them.^ Great Britain replied in the first Orders in Council of 
January 7, 1807, threatening to seize the ships of any country 
that traded with France or her allies ; and in November, after 
Napoleon had compelled nearly all of the states of Europe to 
adopt the Continental system, issued a second series of orders 
(November 4-25), repeating the threats of the first, and consid- 
erably adding to them. Napoleon replied from Milan (Novem- 
ber 23, December 17), threatening to seize every neutral vessel 
that obeyed the British orders. This trade war undoubtedly 
injured Great Britain, already deeply agitated by labor troubles 
due to the introduction of machinery; but it injured France 
and Napoleon more. The Continent could not do without such 
goods as the colonies and Great Britain furnished, and states 
like Prussia, Russia, and Austria were exasperated by the con- 
tinuance of a system that increased the costs of living and 
impoverished their people. Napoleon, without a navy, could 
not enforce his decrees ; and an enormous amount of smuggling 
went on at every important port. In the end, this war con- 
tributed to the overthrow of Napoleon, because it cost him the 
allegiance of many peoples who had made alliances with 
him, and lured him on to attempt military feats that were too 
great for any man to perform. 

340. War with the United States (1812). — Great Britain 
herself was led to commit deeds that seemed as openly acts of 
aggression as were any of which Napoleon had been guilty. In 
1807, hearing that the latter was planning to compel Denmark 
to join him and his system, she proposed an alliance with Den- 
mark; when this was refused, she sent a fleet, bombarded 
Copenhagen (September 7, 1807), and seized the Danish navy. 
Whatever may be said in defence of this action, certain is it 



iFor documents relating to the Continental System, see Translations and 
Reprints, Vol. II, No. 2 (Robinson, " The Napoleonic Period ") ; Colby, No. 110. 



486 ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE. [1812 

that its results were disastrous to Great Britain. It aroused 
against her the wrath of the Danish nation and drove the 
Danes over to the side of Napoleon. 

More serious still was the equally aggressive policy adopted 
by Great Britain toward neutrals. Her order forbidding them 
to trade directly with the Continent, and her claim of the right 
to search neutral vessels for contraband goods or British 
deserters, roused the United States to a declaration of war 
(June 18, 1812). The w^ar, conducted in part on l?vnd and in 
greater part on sea, ended ingloriously for Great Britain. The 
American sailors proved the better seamen, and a series of 
naval conflicts terminated in a great victory for Perry, who 
defeated the British on Lake Erie. On the land, a British 
force captured and burned the city of Washington ; desultory 
fighting went on along the Canadian frontier; and Jackson 
won an important victory over the British at New Orleans. 
Peace was finally signed at Ghent, December 24, 1814.^ This 
war, but a side issue in England's great military operations, 
gave a splendid impetus to American national unity, and led 
Great Britain to modify her naval policy. 

341 . Continuance of the Struggle with Napoleon : The Penin- 
sular War. — In 1808 the Spanish people rose in revolt against 
Napoleon, and Great Britain at once took a new part in the 
struggle. Portugal, her ally, was threatened with partition, 
as the outcome of Napoleon's intrigues with Spain; and to 
her aid the British government despatched Wellesley, recently 
recalled from India. In August, 1808, AVellesley landed 
on the coast near Lisbon. From 1808 to 1814 this great gen- 
eral, often neglected by his own government, and thwarted 
by the Portuguese and Spaniards whom he had come to aid, 
fought courageously on.^ Napoleon at first endeavored to con- 
duct the campaign in person ; but in 1809 he was called back 
to central Europe by the uprising of Austria. Though checked 
at Aspern, he defeated that power at Wagram for the fourth 

1 MacDonald, Select Documents, Nos. 30, 31. 2 Colby, No. 111. 



1815] 



CONGRESS OF VIENNA. 487 



time. In 1812 he began his fatal march on Moscow. In 1813 
he struggled with wonderful genius against Prussia and Russia 
in the wars of liberation; until finally he was thoroughly 
beaten by the fourth Coalition at Leipzig, and compelled to 
return to France. All these years Wellesley, who had been 
made duke of Wellington in 1809, was fighting m Spam. 
Supplied with troops from England by way of the sea-coast, 
he was able to engage three hundred thousand of Napoleon's 
best soldiers at a time when the emperor stood m greatest 
need of them. Little by little he cleared Spain of French 
troops, got control of one district after another, and in 1814 
was able to cross into France. There he joined the armies of 
the other allies, which, winning victories on French soil, com- 
pelled Napoleon to abdicate April 11, 1814. 

342. Congress of Vienna: Napoleon at St. Helena.— In 1814 
Napoleon was sent to Elba, and the Bourbons were restored 
in France. To settle the future of Europe, a great congress, 
the most important thus far in the history of the world, was 
held at Vienna. England was represented there first by 
Lord Castlereagh and afterward by the duke of Wellington. 
While the congress was still in session. Napoleon escaped from 
Elba, and returning to France, established once more his 
authority and dynasty. Though he promised to rule in peace, 
the allies would not consent to his restoration, and immediately 
set their armies in motion against him. At Waterloo, on the 
frontier of Belgium, June 18, 1815, he was totally defeated^ 
by the combined forces of England, under Wellington, and of 
Prussia, under Bllicher and Gneisenau. After abdicating for 
the second time. Napoleon was sent to the island of St. Helena, 
in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821. The Congress of 
Vienna went on with its work ; and in a great treaty of 1815 
completed the rearrangement of the map of Europe. Peace 
had at last come to the nations, and England was released 
from war to enter upon a new era of growth and reform. 

1 Kendall, No. 126. 



488 REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XII. 

References for Chapter XII. — There is no biography of Wilham 
III, except that of Traill in the English Statesmen Series, and no very- 
satisfactory narrative history of the period from 1688 to 1756. Leadam's 
volmne (IX, 1702-1760) in the Political History though brief is excellent, 
and the volume by Trevelyan in A History of England (Oman ed.), which 
deals with the whole Stuart period, 1603-1714, is delightfully written. 
Stanhope (Lord Mahon) has covered the greater part of the eighteenth 
century in two series of volumes : History of England from 1701 to 1713^ 
2 vols. (5th ed. 1889), and History of England from 1713 to 1783, 7 vols. 
(1836-1853, 5th ed. 1858), which though accurate and impartial are 
greatly inferior in style to Macaulay's "Whig Epic" and are hard to 
read. Lecky in his History of England during the Eighteenth Century^ 
8 vols. (1883-1890), has presented hft subject in a series of elaborate 
essays, historical, moral, social, and industrial, which have given his 
work its deserved reputation. A large amount of space (part of Vol. VI 
and all of Vols. VII and VIII) is devoted to Ireland. 

There are many excellent biographies for the period. Short biographies 
of Marlborough have been written by Mrs. Creighton, in Historical 
Biographies Series, and by Saintsbury, in English Worthies Series. 
Wolseley has written Life of John Churchill^ Duke of Marlborough, to 
1702 (1894). Malleson's Prince Eugene of Savoy (1888) is the only life 
in English of that great soldier. There is no adequate life of Harley. 
Roscoe's Harley (1902) aims to supply the want, but probably the best 
version of Harley's political career is to be found in Morgan's English 
Political Parties and Leaders in the Eeign of Queen Anne (1919). 
Macknight's Life of Bolingbroke (1863) is still the best ; HassalPs Boling 
broke (1889) is fair; Sichel's Bolingbroke and his Times, 2 vols. (1901- 
1902), is of uneven merit. There is no complete life of Walpole, except 
the elaborate work of Coxe (1798). Morley's Walpole (1889) in the 
English Statesmen Series is an able work, but distinctly unfair to 
Walpole's opponents. See also Robertson's Bolingbroke and Walpole 
(1919). On the old Pretender we have Haile's James Francis Edward, 
the Old Chevalier (1907), Roome's James Edward, the Old Pretender 
(1914), and Shield and Lang's The King over the Water (1907). Lives 
of Clive have appeared in the English Men of Action Series, Builders of 
Greater Britain Series, and Rulers of India Series. Malcolm's ponderous 
Life of Robert, Lord Clive (1836) gave Macaulay his opportunity to write 
an essay on Clive (1840), one of the best of his essays. Similarly Gleig's 
Memoirs of the Life of Hastings (1841) led to Macaulay's essay on Hast- 
ings (1841), a very unfair estimate. Admirable lives of Hastings have 
been written by Trotter (1894), Rulers of India Series, and by Lyall 
(1902), English Men of Action Series, but the work that successfully de- 



b 



REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XII. 489 

fends Hastings against the unjust attacks of Burke and Macaulay has yet 
to be written. See, however, Strachey's Hastings and the Rohilla War 
(1892), Grier's The Great Proconsul (1904), an historical romance, 
Hastings's Vindication of Warren Hastings (1909), and Neill's " Defence 
of Warren Hastings " in History, April, 1918. Malleson has written Tlie 
Founders of the Indian Empire: Clive, Hastings, Wellesley (1882), 
Holmes, Four Famous Soldiers of India (1889), and Dodwell, Bupleix 
and Clive (1920). There is a life of Rockingham by Albemarle (1852); 
and the two studies of Burke by Morley, Edmund Burke, a Historical 
Study (1867) and Burke (1879), in English Men of Letters Series, are 
adequate. 

Trevelyan's Early History of Charles James Fox (1881), The Ameri- 
can Revolution, 4 vols. (1905-1909), and George III and Charles James 
Fox, 2 vols. (1912-1914), are veiy interesting but constitute an inadequate 
history of the American Revolution. Stanhope's Life of Pitt, 4 vols. 
(1862), has long been a standard work, but is now in a measure super- 
seded by von Ruville's, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 3 vols. (1907), 
a long and laborious treatise, Williams, Life of Pitt, 2 vols. (1913, 2d 
impression, 1914), an excellent biography, Rosebery's Lord Chatham, 
His Early Life and Connections, to 1756 (1910), a delightful essay, and 
Hotblack's Colonial Policy of Chatham (1917), a work of many merits. 
We have also Hammond's Charles James Fox (1903), Riker's Henry 
Fox, First Lord Holland, 2 vols. (1911), Ilchester's life of the same, 
2 vols, (1919), Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne, 2 vols. (2d. ed, 1912), 
and Bleackleys's Life of John Wilkes (1917). For the younger Pitt, 
three volumes by Rose cover his career admirably : Pitt and the National 
Revival (1911), Pitt and the Great War (1911), and Pitt and Napoleon 
(1912). The ablest life of Napoleon is Rose's Life of Napoleon I, 2 vols. 
(1902). It throws new light on many aspects of the foreign policy of 
Great Britain from 1801 to 1815. The best life of Nelson is by Mahan, 
The Life of Nelson, the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain, 
2 vols. (1897). . This work is a continuation of the same author's Influence 
of Sea Power on the French Revolution, 2 vols. (1892). There are brief 
lives of Wellesley (Duke of Wellington), in the English Men of Action 
Series, Historical Biographies Series, Rulers of India Series, and Heroes 
of the Nation Series. 

For the relations with India the works of Malleson are useful : History 
of the French in India (1868) ; Final French Struggles in India and iv 
the Indian Seas (1878); and The Decisive Battles of India, 1746-1849 
(1883). For the Seven Years' War, as a conflict between France and 
England for the control of North America, Corbett's England in the Seven 
Years'' War, 2 vols. (1907) is masterly, and the same can be said of his 



490 REFEKENCES FOR CHAPTER XII. 

treatment of a later phase in The Campaign of Trafalgar (1910;. 
Napier's History of the Peninsular War, 6 vols. (1828-1840), a famous 
though controversial work, has received new treatment at the hands of 
Oman, History of the Peninsular War, 5 vols. (1902-1914). 

On the constitutional side, Hallam, The Constitutional History of Eng- 
land, Vol. Ill, is still serviceable. May's Constitutional History of Eng- 
land, 1760-1860, 2 vols. (1871, 4th ed. 1911) is indispensable and not 
uninteresting reading. Much work on the institutional history of the 
period, a very important and much neglected aspect, is in the form of 
articles and monographs. For example, articles preliminary to a history 
of the cabinet, which has not yet been satisfactorily written, have been 
contributed by Turner {E. H. B. and A. H. B., 1912-1917), Anson 
(E. H B. 1914), Temperley (E. H. B. 1911) and Sedgwick (E. H. B. 
1919). Earlier works on the subject are now largely out of date. For 
the church, see Overton and Relton in Vol. VII (1714-1800), of A 
History of the English Church and Overton's Evangelical Bevival in the 
Eighteenth Century (1886), and The Non-Jurors (1902) . For the economic 
and social side the best general discussion is in Lecky, but the writings 
of Cheyney, Warner, and Prothero should be used also. Johnson's Dis- 
appearance of the Small Landowner (1909), is an admirable survey of 
English agricultural history. Cunningham's Growth of English Industry 
and Commerce, Modern Times, Parts I, II (new ed. 1917) is valuable. 
One should note also Roscoe's The English Scene in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury (1912)and the various words of Ashton on social history. 

For Scotland, in addition to the histories of Hume Brown and Lang 
{A History of Scotland, 4 vols. 1900-1907, ending with 1746), which 
represent two methods of writing history, Whig and Jacobite, we have 
Mathieson's Scotland and the Union, 1695-1707 (1905), and The Awaken- 
ing of Scotland, 1747-1797 (1910), and Miss Keith's Commercial Bela- 
tions of England and Scotland, 1603-1707 (1910); for Ireland, Joyce, as 
above, Morris's Ireland, 1494-1905 (revised by Dunlop, 1909), D' Alton's 
History of Ireland, 3 vols. (1904-1906) of which two *ave appeared, 
O'Brien's Tv:o Centuries of Irish History, 1691-1870 (2d ed. 1907), and 
Murray's Commercial and Financial Belations between England and Ire- 
land c^fter 1688 (1903). 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ERA or REFORM, DEMOCRACY. AND EMPIRl.. 

343. Great Britain after the Napoleonic Wars. — For twenty- 
three years Great Britain had been at war, and during that time 
home affairs had been neglected, and the mass of her people had 
endured hardship and misery. On the return of peace, it 
became necessary to reckon up the gains and losses. Great 
Britain had obtained a considerable extension of colonial 
territory; Malta, the Ionian Islands, Heligoland, Cape of 
Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, Trinidad, and Tobago had been 
added to her possessions. She had won an influential position 
in the councils of Europe, and was easily the first naval power 
in the world. But all these gains had been made at the 
expense of prosperity, reform, and progress at home. During 
the period of the war, scarcely one important attempt had 
been made, on the part of the government, to improve the 
condition of the British people ; all its energies had been con- 
sumed in the great task of raising money to subsidize allies, 
to equip armies, and to build ships. Now that war was over. 
Great Britain had to face an enormous debt, heavy taxes, high 
prices, increasing pauperism, badly managed factories, crowded, 
and ill-governed towns, and a thousand other conditions that 
were making the middle classes dissatisfied and the laborers 
sullen and rebellious. 

344. The Industrial Revolution. — Since the days of Wal- 
pole, great industrial changes had taken place in England, 
which had been responsible alike for the vast increase in 
wealth and for the terrible distresses of the people. Manu- 
facturing, which had begun in the fourteenth century, had 

491 



492 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1733 

received a new stimulus at the end of the eighteenth century ; 
but, although the number of industries had greatly increased, 
the methods were still primitive and the output was small. 

Weaving of woollen and cotton goods had been carried on 
by workmen in their cottages, and spinning had been largely 
done by women and girls in their hours of leisure. In 1733 
Kay invented the flying shuttle, which doubled the weaver's 
power of work and at once increased the demand for yarn. 
This demand was met in 1764, when Hargreave invented a 
machine for spinning, known as the spinning-jenny, worked by 
hand with a wheel. A little later, Arkwright improved on 
Hargreave's machine, and by a new method made a stronger 
thread. Crompton combined the inventions of Hargreave and 
Arkwright, and produced the "mule" in 1779. Thus spin- 
ning was advanced more rapidly than weaving, and it remained 
for some one to make a machine that would weave. This 
Cartwright did in 1785. But all machines were worked by 
hand, animals, or water power, until Watt perfected the 
steam-engine, in the period from 1760 to 1790 ; * and even then 
machinery and steam would have been only of limited impor- 
tance, had not coal and coke been substituted for wood and 
charcoal, and had not improvements in the iron industry 
rendered that commodity more available for general use. As 
cheap production demands rapid distribution, it was an impor- 
tant event when Brindley built the first canal, in 1761, and 
when roads, which had been almost impassable during the 
eighteenth century, were constructed for the first time of lay- 
ers of broken stone, a method invented by two Scottish engi- 
neers, Thomas Telford and John Macadam. 

Side by side with these improvements in manufacturing went 
improvements in agriculture. Wet lands were drained ; poor 
lands were transformed by manuring and fertilizing; new 
seeds and roots were introduced ; and the breeds of animals 
improved in appearance, weight, and strength. Beginning 

1 Colby, No. 102. 



1815] EFFECTS OF THE iNDUSTHiAL REVOLUTION. 49B 

with 1780, a new enclosure movement began, for the sole pur- 
pose of better farming.* 

345. Effects of These Changes. — The first results of these 
great economic changes were discouraging. Machinery reduced 
the cottage laborer to penury, enclosures ruined the small 
farmers and drove them to the cities, the factory system took 
the place of domestic industry, and great landowners controlled 
the farms of England. New conditions began to prevail. Men 
and women crowded into the towns, which were badly adapted 
to receive them, and were lacking in police and adequate gov- 
ernment. They labored in factories, mines, and great industrial 
establishments, where wages were low, hours long, and the 
avarice of employers imperilled body and mind. 

Since the downfall of the old mercantile system, a new 
theory of government had arisen — known as laissez faire, "let 
alone," and this said that the government should not interfere, 
but should let employers and employees settle affairs among 
themselves. Under this system, factories and mines became 
death traps for the women and children who worked in them. 
The evil was aggravated by an abominable poor law system, 
which had grown up since 1795 and had set aside some of the 
best features of the old Elizabethan law. It pauperized the 
poor, trebled the expenses of the parishes, and raised 
enormously the number of those dependent on parish doles. 
Crime increased; and, as in more than two hundred differ- 
ent cases men were punished by hanging, society became 
brutalized. The tone of the law courts was low — judges 
browbeat the prisoners, lawyers bullied the witnesses, and the 
whole administration of law and justice sa,vored of barbarism. 
It is difficult for us of to-day to realize the cruelty and injus- 
tice shown by men of the privileged classes toward those of 
the class who were without political influence, money, title, 
certain employment, or assurance of personal liberty or safety. 

1 Prothero, English Farming, Past and Present, contains an admirable 
account of these improvements. 



494 ERA OF REi^ORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1818 

346. Policy of the Government (1815-1820). — It is little won- 
der that the years immediately following the return of peace 
should have been characterized by agitation and unrest. Not 
only in England, but in France, Spain, and Italy, during the 
period from 1815 to 1820, the masses, dissatisfied with the 
repressive policy of their rulers, were forming secret societies 
and engaging in revolts. Kings and ministers generally were 
doing all in their power to preserve the peace by acts of 
repression. 

In 1815 the Tories were in power in England, for the Whigs 
had become discredited because of their opposition to the war. 
The prime minister was Liverpool, and associated with him 
was Castlereagh, a very able but narrow-minded Irishman, as 
secretary of foreign affairs. The king, George III, an old man 
and at times insane, was ruling under the regency of his son, 
the Prince of Wales. As of old, parliament was representa- 
tive only of the landowning and moneyed classes, and had 
little sympathy with the people, deeming them dangerous and 
revolutionary agitators. For five years the government did 
nothing to alleviate distress, and could find no better remedy 
than the use of force. 

As is usual under such circumstances, leaders arose who did 
not believe in moderation or compromise, but desired radical 
changes. These men were called Radicals, and knew no other 
way to gain their ends than by intimidation. In 1816 a 
body of them met at Spa Field, near London, and made an 
attempt to organize a committee of public safety and to seize 
the Tower. The meeting was broken up by soldiers ; but the 
frightened government had parliament suspend the Habeas 
Corpus Act and pass laws to prevent discussion in meetings 
or in the press. A series of popular movements culminated in 
the famous gathering at St. Peter's field, Manchester, in 1819, 
where fifty-thousand persons met to protest against the policy 
of the government.^ The cavalry broke up the crowd and killed 

1 Colby, No. 113. 



1 



1822] A BEGINNING OF REFORM. 495 

half a dozen individuals, whence the name " Massacre of Peter- 
loo." Parliament passed the Six Acts — called the " Gag 
Laws" — the most important of which prohibited public meet- 
ings for the consideration of grievances. One is not surprised 
that in 1820 a conspiracy was formed to murder the members 
of the cabinet.^ 

In other respects also the government was unfortunate in its 
measures. In 1815 it passed the first Corn Law, which for- 
bade the importation of foreign corn until the price should 
have reached eighty shillings a quarter (eight bushels) ; and 
that, too, in the face of great scarcity of corn at home. The 
corn law was passed in the interest of the landowners, and it 
increased the distress of the poor, who had no corn to sell, and 
who were unable to buy it on account of its high price. At 
the same time parliament removed the income tax. Each of 
these measures made more intense than before the hatred that 
the poor classes felt against the rich. 

347. A Beginning of Reform. — In 1820 George III died, and 
his son came to the throne as George IV. In 1822 Lord Castle- 
reagh died — a man who, in the public mind at least, was 
closely associated with reaction and aristocratic rule. The old 
king had long since ceased to be of much importance in govern- 
ment ; but his ministers and the members of parliament had 
seemed unwilling to act contrary to his wishes. For George 
lY, however, there existed no such sentiment. By his debts, 
his vices, and his treatment of his queen, Caroline, he had 
incurred the contempt of all parties. 

A new group of men now came forward, chief among whom 
were Canning, Huskisson, Sir John Russell, and Sir Eobert 
Peel. In 1822, when Peel became home secretary and Can- 
ning foreign secretary in the Liverpool cabinet, the era of 
reform may be said to begin. These men were Tories, but 
moderate Tories, who had an appreciation of the needs of the 
country. Opposed to them in their own party were the con- 

1 The Cato Street Conspiracy. 



496 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1823 



servative Tories, who were satisfied with conditions as they 
were and wished no reform. 

In 1823, in the interest of reform, the criminal code was 
made more civilized by the abolition of the death penalty for 
about a hundred offences. In the same year Huskisson intro- 
duced a series of far-reaching measures touching finance and 

commerce. Acting under 
his guidance, parliament 
reduced the customs duties 
on raw materials, modified 
the navigation acts, cut 
down the interest on the 
national debt, and made 
the corn law less rigid. In 
1825 it permitted working- 
men to form trade unions 
under certain conditions. 

But most important of 
all was the measure grant- 
ing to Eoman Catholics 
full political rights. The 
emancipation of the Catho- 
lics had been a burning 
question for fifty years.^ 
It had led to popular 
uprisings, known as the Gordon riots, in 1780 ; it had " divided, 
weakened, or destroyed " every government that had held office 
since 1800; and it was the subject upon which George III 
had been almost a monomaniac, so intense was his opposi- 
tion to any project favoring a removal of Eoman Catholic 
disabilities. Even now George IV was as bitter against the 
act as his father had been, the House of Lords was hostile 
to it, and the people were strongly prejudiced against it. 




Geokge Canning. 
From a contemporary engraving. 



1 For extracts illustrating the Catholic emancipation agitation, see Lee, 
Nos. 209-213; Kendall, Nos. 108, 128. 



1829] NEED OF ELECTORAL REFORM. 497 

The ministry was divided: Canning was for it, Peel against 
it. The House of Commons only was favorable. For four 
years the question was agitated in parliament and out. 
Finally Peel, though never convinced by the arguments of his 
opponents, yielded, and brought forward a measure, which 
was passed on April 13, 1829, completing the restoration of the 
Roman Catholics to political rights. Wellington, equally un- 
willing, pushed the measure through the House of Lords. 
The Test Act of 1673, compelling all officials under the Crown 
to receive the sacrament according to the rites of the English 
church, had been repealed the year before; and now Roman 
Catholics were allowed to sit and vote in parliament, after tak- 
ing a new oath framed especially for them.^ This measure 
effected an important political change, in admitting a body of 
new and influential men into parliament. Taken in conjunction 
with the repeal of the Corporation Act of 1661, which had pre- 
vented Dissenters from holding office in municipalities, it took 
away from the established church its monopoly of certain 
political privileges, and raised the social as well as the politi- 
cal standing of both Roman Catholics and Dissenters. 

348. Need of Electoral Reform. — A greater reform was yet 
to come. The question of extending the right to vote to 
the middle classes had been before the country for half a cen- 
tury. Thus far the obstinacy of the aristocratic and moneyed 
classes, the distractions of the long war with Napoleon, and the 
excessive demands of the Radicals, who wished universal suf- 
frage, had combined to prevent the adoption of any measure 
looking toward the extension of the right to vote. But the 
industrial revolution, supplementing the religious revival of 
Wesley and Whitefield, had given new importance to the men 
whose industry was the chief source of British wealth and the 
backbone of British commerce. The American Revolution, the 
establishment of the republic in France, the wars that won 
the empire, had tended to make those without political rights 

1 Adams and Stephens, Nos. 261-262. 



498 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1821 

discontented with their position and determined to gain for 
themselves a share in government. Among those who led the 
demonstrations after 1815 were some who clamored for uni- 
versal suffrage; and men like "Orator" Hunt, influenced by 
French Jacobin notions, made inflammatory appeals in behalf 
of the rights of the people. 

The existing electoral system was notoriously unfair, even 
according to the older theory of representation. This theory 
declared that all men in the boroughs and the counties were 
represented, even though a majority of them had not the right to 
vote for those who represented them. Parliament was made up 
of one hundred and eighty-six members from forty counties, four 
hundred and seventy-two members from about two hundred 
boroughs, and five members from the universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge. But these members were so distributed that ten 
southern counties had nearly as many as the thirty central and 
northern counties. This condition was due to the policy of past 
sovereigns, who had conferred the right to elect members upon 
villages that could be depended on to send up members favor- 
able to the government. The boroughs of Cornwall, for exam- 
ple, had returned for two centuries and a half forty-four 
members, and this number was not decreased until 1821, when 
Grampound was disenfranchised.^ Thus this under-populated 
county returned as many borough members, less one, as all 
Scotland,^ and more by two than the densely populated coun- 
ties of Durham, Northumberland, and York. The boroughs of 
the south had, therefore, more than their fair share of repre- 
sentatives, while those of the active and populous north sent 
fewer members to parliament than they should have done 
according to their population. 

The borough members, thus unfairly distributed, were often 
not representatives at all, but nominees; that is, they were 
members whose election was controlled by peers, influen- 
tial commoners, and the government. It is estimated that out 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 260. 2 Kendall, No. 109. 



1830] ELECTORAL SYSTEM BEFORE 1832. 499 

of the entire body of four hundred and seventy-two borough 
members only one hundred and thirty-seven were in any sense 
of the word elected. The others came from pocket boroughs/ 
whose representatives were named by influential individuals or 
families ; or from rotten boroughs/ some of which were not 
boroughs at all, but were places almost uninhabited, where the 
right to return members was controlled by one or more property 
owners. Bosseney in Cornwall was a hamlet of three cot- 
tages, possessing nine electors, eight of whom belonged to 
one family. Yet this hamlet sent two members to parliament. 
Michell had five voters; Gatton, seven; Old Sarum had no 
voters at all. There were in Cornwall about one thousand voters 
and forty -two members; of the latter twenty were actually 
controlled by seven peers, twenty-one by eleven commoners, 
and only one was in any sense of the word freely elected. ^ 

For a century this condition of things had prevailed. Some- 
thing had been done to check bribery and corruption ; but 
nothing whatever had been done to extend the right to vote, to 
make the methods of voting uniform among the towns and coun- 
ties, or to give to great and growing towns, like Manchester, 
Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield, a share in representation. 

349. Events leading to the Passage of the Reform Bill of 
1832. — The year 1830 was marked by a number of important 
events, each of which helped the cause of reform. On June 
26, George IV died unmourned, and his brother, a popular and 
genial sailor, with fewer prejudices than his Hanoverian prede- 
cessors had possessed, came to the throne as William IV. A 
few weeks afterward the revolution of July broke out in Paris, 
drove the Bourbon king, Charles X, from the throne, and inau- 
gurated in France a constitutional regime under Louis Philippe. 



1 A pocket borough was so called because its members were carried, as it 
were, in the pocket of some influential political leader. 

2 A rotten borough was one with so few electors that it ceased to con- 
stitute a borough at all. 

8 May, Constitutional History of England, Vol. I, Chap. VI; Courtney, The 
Parliamentary Representation to Parliament in Cornwall to 1832 (1889). 



500 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1830 

In September was opened the Liverpool and Manchester Eail- 
road, which not only exhibited a new and epoch-making method 
of rapid transportation, but also brought into unmistakable 
prominence the importance of the midland and northern regions 
as the industrial centres of the kingdom. And, lastly, in 
November, when parliament met, Wellington, in emphatic and 
incautious language, opposed all attempts at reform, and in so 
doing, not only weakened his own popularity* and brought to 
an end his career as minister, but also ruined the Tory party 
and made his opponents more determined and confident than 
ever. At once he was overthrown by a union of the discon- 
tented Tories, or Canningites, with the Whigs. His place was 
taken by Earl Grey, a Whig and a liberal, whose ministry was 
committed to the cause of electoral reform. 

When, in March, 1831, Lord John Eussell brought in the 
first reform bill, the struggle began in earnest. The first bill 
was defeated. Thereupon the ministry appealed to the coun- 
try,^ and a new parliament was elected. A second bill was 
passed, only to be rejected by the House of Lords. The excite- 
ment in the country rose to fever-heat. Even the working 
classes, who were not benefited by the bill, and the Radicals, 
who wanted a wider franchise, joined in the agitation. Asso- 
ciations were formed, mass-meetings held, and processions 
planned in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and other 
central and northern cities. Probably at no time in Eng- 
lish history had excitement been so intense or so wide- 
spread. When, in December, 1831, parliament passed a third 
bill, the Lords did not dare reject it, fearing a popular revolt. 
But they tried to amend it. Earl Grey asked William IV to 
create enough new peers to carry the bill, but the king refused. 
Grey resigned. Then William IV called on Wellington to 
form a ministry ; but the Tory party had lost its unity in the 
face of the popular agitation, and Wellington could do nothing. 
With Grey's return to office, the passage of the reform bill was 

1 Colby. No. 117 ; Kendall, No. 129. « Kendall, No. 130. 



County Map of 
ENGLAND 

and 
WALES 




1832] THE REFORM ACT OF 1832. 501 

assured. The Lords, at the king's special request, withdrew 
their opposition, and on June 7, 1832, the measure became law.^ 

350. The Reform Act of 1832. — The Eeform Act, the most 
important measure of its kind in English history, gave the fran- 
chise to the middle classes. By placing a property qualifica- 
tion on the right to vote, it denied that right to the industrial, 
agricultural, and mining classes. The actual number of voters 
was increased from four hundred and thirty thousand to six 
hundred and fifty thousand; that is, one in every twenty- 
two of the population became an elector. The qualifica- 
tion was for the first time made uniform throughout Great 
Britain. The franchise was given in the counties to all copy- 
holders and leaseholders (farmers and tenants) of land worth 
£10 a year, and to tenants-at-will holding an estate worth £50 
a year; and in the boroughs to all holders of houses worth £10 
a year. Voting methods were vastly improved by a system of 
registration, by the adoption of smaller voting districts, and by 
the fixing of a time limit of two days within which the vote 
must be cast. 

Equally important with this enlargement of the voting body, 
was the redistribution of seats in parliament. Fifty-six bor- 
oughs were deprived of their members, and thirty-two had 
their membership reduced. Of the one hundred and forty- 
three seats thus gained sixty-five were given to the English 
counties, eight to the Scottish, and five to the Irish; forty- 
four were given to twenty-two towns like Manchester and 
Birmingham; and twenty -one to smaller towns hitherto un- 
represented. This redistribution increased enormously the 
importance of the central and northern counties and boroughs. 
Thus the House of Commons became, as it had never been be- 
fore, an elective and representative body ; and public opinion, 
hitherto of indirect influence only, became a factor of direct 
importance in the future government of the kingdom. 



1 Lee, Nos. 218-220. For the text of the act, Adams and Stephens, No. 
263; Colby, No. 116. 



502 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1832 

351. Further Reforms under the New System. — Great interest 
naturally centred in the new body elected under the Eef orm 
Act in the autumn of 1832, and, as was to have been expected, 
the new voters sent up a large majority for the Whig ministers. 
The old Whig party, now counting the Radicals among their 
numbers, took the name Liberals, and the Tories, realizing the 
great unpopularity of their party name, began to call them- 
selves the Conservatives. Perhaps the most interesting case 
of membership in the new body was that of William Ewart 
Gladstone. Gladstone began his long career of sixty years in 
parliament as a Tory, representing one of the few remaining 
pocket boroughs controlled by the duke of Newcastle. 

This victory of the Liberals ushered in a series of remark- 
able reforms that began the social and administrative regen- 
eration of England. Greatest from the humanitarian point of 
view was the abolition of slavery. In 1807 the slave trade had 
been done away with in the British colonies ; ^ and in conse- 
quence the condition of the planters in the West Indies had 
steadily deteriorated. The fact that slavery had ceased to be 
profitable rendered it easier for the teachings of Wilberforce, 
Clarkson, and others to be embodied in law; and in 1833 the 
whole system, as far as Great Britain was concerned, was abol- 
ished.^ The government appropriated £20,000,000 to compen- 
sate slave owners for their losses and allowed them in the way 
of service three-fourths of the slave's time for twelve years. 
The compensation was inadequate, as the losses of the slave 
owners amounted to about £50,000,000, while the service 
arrangement proved to be of little value. In the same year a 
bill which was passed for the relief of children in factories 
began the history of factory legislation. 

Equally important were the great administrative reforms 
which substituted order and system for the confusion and in- 
efficiency that had hitherto characterized methods of local 



1 Adams and Stephens, No. 259; Lee, No. 217. 

2 Adams and Stephens, No. 264; Colhy, No. 103. 



1840] 



REFORM MEASURES, 1832-1840. 



603 



I 



government. In 1834 an amendment to the poor law thor- 
oughly revised an unfortunate measure of 1795, which had 
overburdened the parishes and increased the number of pau- 
pers. Control of the poor was taken away from the parish and 
given to a group of parishes called the Union, which elected a 
board of men entirely independent of the old justices of the 
peace. This act deprived the parish of its last important 
function and the local aristocracy of an important duty. In 
1835 came the Municipal Corporations Act, which created a 
uniform system of government for the corporate towns of 
Great Britain, abolished the system of government in the hands 
of a few men, which had prevailed up to this time, and pro- 
vided for popular control by the tax-payers. 
This reform of the municipalities was followed 
more than fifty years afterward by the reform 
of the counties in 1888 and of the parishes in 
1894. In 1836 registration of births, mar- 
riages, and deaths was taken out of the hands 
of the church and given to a new body of gov- 
ernment officials. In 1833 the government 
undertook to extend education, chiefly among 
the poor, by a grant of £20,000 for private 
schools. This attempt to encourage education 
was the first in a long series of measures organ- 
izing a public school system in Great Britain. 
Many minor reforms were carried through. 

Prisons and asylums were improved; whip- though after 1840 

, .,, . - ,. . \ , the stamp was 

pmg posts and pillories were abolished ; the printed in red and 

postal service was simplified and extended; the cancellation 

postage stamps were introduced in 1840, and 

postage was reduced to a penny, that is, two cents. In 1836 the 

stamp duty on newspapers was lowered ; in 1855 it was got rid 

of altogether, and in consequence the circulation of newspapers 

increased enormously, and many new papers were established. 

352. Accession of Queen Victoria. — In 1837 William IV died, 

and the next heir to the throne was his niece, Victoria, the 




First Adhesive 
Postage Stamp. 

The stamp is black, 
the cancellation 
mark red. So well 
was the design exe- 
cuted that it was 
retained for more 
than thirty years, 



504 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. 1837 

daughter of the duke of Kent, at this time but eighteen years 
of age. To her long reign of nearly sixty-four years has been 
fitly given the name of the Victorian Era. Though many of 
the measures that began the transformation of "Old England" 
had already been adopted, yet their application and extension 
coincided with the life of the queen. The Victorian Era, 
therefore, was a period of transition, during which Great 
Britain and the British empire of to-day were created. That 
Great Britain was able to pass through this great period of her 
history without serious drawback or disturbance is in no small 
degree due to Queen Victoria. Her personality, her high regard 
for all that was right and honorable, her example as a wife 
and mother, her rigid respect for all constitutional forms, and 
her conscientious performance of her duties as sovereign ren- 
dered her a factor of unmistakable influence in the life and 
government of the British people. Trained and guided during 
her, early years by the Whig minister. Lord Melbourne, and 
afterward (1840-1861), aided and advised by her husband, 
Albert of Saxe-Coburg, the prince consort, she developed a re- 
markable knowledge of the principles and practices of consti- 
tutional government, and displayed a judgment in the exercise 
of the royal prerogatives that was rare in a British sovereign. 
353. General Character of the Victorian Era. — Under Queen 
Victoria the growth of democracy, the improvement of social 
and economic conditions, and the expansion of the kingdom 
into the empire went steadily on. Cabinet government became 
firmly established; the extension of the suffrage, desired by 
the Eadicals and the Chartists, was finally effected ; free trade 
was introduced ; the Irish question entered a new phase under 
new and able leaders ; the growth of commerce brought Great 
Britain into contact with the far East, and the possession of 
India and the trade routes thither quickened the rivalry with 
Russia and complicated foreign diplomacy; increase in the 
size and importance of the colonies led to the adoption of a 
new colonial policy and eventually to the great issue of colonial 
federation j while in matters of legislation at home, the safety, 



1901] VICTORIA — PARTIES AND MINISTERS. 505 

welfare, and happiness of the middle and working classes 
gained an ever increasing amount of attention. As the years 
went on, Great Britain withdrew more and more from Conti- 
nental affairs. With the accession of Victoria, Hanover was 
separated from the English crown and given to Ernest Augus- 
tus, the youngest son of George III. Thus Great Britain was 
saved from all entanglement in German politics, and from all 
responsibility for Hanover during the great wars of 1866 and 
1870, whereby German unity was effected. 

354. General Survey of Parties and Ministers under Victoria.— 
The Whig ministry of Lord Melbourne was in office when Victo- 
ria came to the throne, and, in the main, the Whigs or Liberals 
remained the leading party till 1874, The Conservatives won 
in the elections of 1841, and Peel was prime minister till 1^6. 
His advocacy of free trade, however, divided the Conservative 
party into the protectionist or old Conservatives, led by Derby 
and Disraeli, and the free trade or liberal Conservatives, led 
by Aberdeen and Gladstone. This break in the party gave 
power into the hands of the Liberals, under Lord John Russell, 
in 1847; but disputes between E-ussell and Palmerston, the 
foreign minister, weakened their control, and in 1852 the Con- 
servatives returned to power for a brief space, with Derby as 
the head of the government. In 1853, however, the free trade 
Conservatives joined the Liberals, overthrew Derby, and placed 
in power a coalition ministry under Aberdeen. This government 
remained in control till 1855, when Aberdeen resigned, owing 
to the discontent aroused by his unsatisfactory conduct of the 
Crimean war, and Palmerston took his place with another Lib- 
eral ministry. Foreign troubles drove Palmerston from office, 
and a short Derby-Disraeli ministry marked the supremacy of 
the Conservatives in 1858-1859. Palmerston regained power in 
1859 and retained it till his death in 1865, when Russell became 
minister for a year. With the alternating ministries, first of Dis- 
raeli (1866-1868, 1875-1880) and Gladstone (1869-1874, 1880- 
1885), then of Gladstone (January-July, 1886, 1892-1894), Rose- 
bery (1894-1895) and Salisbury (1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895- 



506 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1837 

1902), a new party era began, and new issues and new pro- 
grammes came to the front. 

After 1841, cabinet and parliamentary government became 
firmly established.^ The queen gave up all right of appointing 
ministries and always selected the man who could command 
a majority in the House of Commons. She demanded, how- 
ever, that her ministers keep her fully informed of all that was 
being done, and that they should not change a measure after it 
had received the royal sanction. The rise of the prime min- 
ister within the cabinet gave unity to the entire cabinet, which 
thenceforth was invariably selected from one party and always 
resigned as a whole when the majority was against it. When 
supported by a majority in the House of Commons, the minis- 
try wielded practically absolute power, and the prime minister 
was the head of the government. 

355. The Chartist Movement. — The leaders of the Liberals, 
convinced that reform had proceeded far enough, had no inten- 
tion of altering further the composition of the House of Com- 
mons, or of extending further the right to vote. But the 
Radicals deemed the reform of 1832 only a stepping stone to 
universal suffrage. When they found that the government 
would do nothing for them, they began a series of demonstra- 
tions, not as dangerous probably as those that followed the 
year 1816, but more spectacular. 

This agitation is known as the Chartist movement, because 
those engaged in it presented their claims in the form of a 
charter. It began in 1837, the year of Victoria's accession, 
when the House of Commons, by a vote of five hundred to 
twenty-two, refused to consider further electoral reform. The 
Radicals, in alliance with the workingmen, who believed that 



1 The last attempt of the crown to resist the will of the cabinet was in 1839, 
when Queen Victoria refused to change the ladies of the bedchamber to suit 
the complexion of the new Peel ministry. Therefore Peel refused to continue 
in office. When, in 1841, the Whigs agcin suffered defeat and Peel formed a 
new ministry, the queen yielded the point, and the ladies of the bedchamber 
were selected from Conservative families- 



1848] THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT. 507 

an extension of the right to vote would relieve their misery, or- 
ganized meetings and processions, and presented to parliament 
a great petition,^ which embodied their demands. This charter 
demanded the following six points: (1) universal suffrage; 
(2) secret ballot; (3) pay for representatives; (4) abolition 
of property qualifications ; (5) annual elections ; and (6) better 
distribution of parliamentary seats throughout the country. 
Three times were petitions drawn up, signed by thousands of 
people, and presented to parliament amid great excitement. 
The first was presented in 1837-1839 ; the second in 1842, when 
the agitation, increased by labor troubles, reached its height ; 
and the third in 1848, when the revolution of that year in 
France aroused the Chartists to make one more attempt to 
obtain what they desired.^ 

The Chartists did not form a society, or create an organization 
of any kind. The leaders found support among the people, 
because of the hopeless despair and misery that prevailed 
throughout England. The movement came to nothing, for 
the great mass of the English people were not ready for the 
changes that the Radicals demanded, and the conserva- 
tive classes did not like the methods that the Radicals 
employed. The agitation was, in a sense, preliminary to the 
reform movements of 1867 and 1884, at both of which times 
some of the most important of the points mentioned above 
were granted by law. 

356. Free Trade: Repeal of the Corn Laws. — Behind the 
Chartist movement lay the discontent of the working classes, 
who saw in the protective system the reason why rents and 
prices were high. They wanted the repeal of customs duties, 
notably thaton corn (wheat), which made bread dear. To the same 
end worked a group of men composing the free trade party, led 
by Richard Cobden, a Manchester cotton merchant, and John 



1 Kendall, No. 131. 

2 Lee, Nos. 221-223. For the earlier stages in the Chartist movement, 
an article in the English Historical Review^ 1889, pp. 625-644. 



508 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1838 

Bright, the orator of the movement. In 1838 this party began 
a vigorous campaign for the repeal of the corn laws,^ and were 
so far successful as to win over to their cause Peel, prime min- 
ister and the head of the Conservatives. Peel, in the matter of 
free trade, as in that of Eoman Catholic emancipation, was not 
convinced, but yielded, believing the poverty in England and 
the famine in Ireland could both be traced to the system of 

protection. 

Peel began his free trade 
career by abolishing in 1842 
all remaining export duties, 
and by reducing import duties 
on seven hundred and fifty 
articles consumed in Great 
Britain. He made up the 
loss in revenue by reestablish- 
ing the tax on all incomes of 
£150 and over. In the same 
year, turning his attention to 
the corn laws, he forced his 
party to reduce the duty on 
wheat. It was agreed that 
the duty on foreign wheat 
should rise or fall according 
to the price of wheat at home 
— that is, that the duty should 
increase when the price of 
home wheat fell and decrease when it rose. This arrangement 
was known as the " sliding scale." But during the four years 
that followed the adoption of this system, bad harvests in 
Great Britain and a terrible potato famine in Ireland made 
Peel consider the advisability of abolishing altogether the 
duty on wheat. In 1845 the Whig minister. Lord John 
Russell, announced his conversion to free trade in wheat. 




Richard Cobden. 
From an engraving. 



1 Kendall, No. 135. 



1846] 



EEPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. 



509 



Peel, counting on tlie support of the Whigs and of a certain 
number of his own followers, introduced in 1846 a measure 
repealing the corn laws. The measure was passed, though 
more than two hundred Conservatives voted against it.' 

In securing the passage of the bill, the manufacturing 
classes secured a victory over the landowning classes, and en- 
dangered the future of wheat-growing in England. The serious 
effects of the measure did 
not become evident until the 
competition with American 
wheat began, twenty years 
later. The free trade issue 
destroyed the unity of the 
Conservative party, and 
eventually drove the fol- 
lowers of Peel, Gladstone 
among the number, over to 
the side of the Liberals, 
and gave to the Liberals 
almost unbroken supremacy 
for thirty years. Not until 
1874 was Disraeli able to 
organize a new Conservative 
party, and to obtain for it 
the first clear majority in 
parliament that it had had 
since 1842. 

357. Early Struggles for Home Rule in Ireland. — The third 
great agitation of the first decade of Queen Victoria's reign 
was that of the Irish, who wished for redress of grievances 
and a parliament separate from that of Great Britain. The 
leader of the movement was Daniel O'Connell, who, as early 
as 1828, had begun the campaign for Catholic emancipation.^ 




John Bright. 
From an engraving. 



1 Lee, No. 224; Kendall, No. 136. 

a Colby, No. 115 ; Kendall, No. 128. See above, § 347. 



510 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1832 

Encouraged by the victory of 1829, O'Connell took up the 
question of the tithe system, whereby the Roman Catholic 
peasantry were compelled to pay tithes for the support of the 
established church in Ireland. The " Tithe War " lasted for 
six years (1832-1838), and during that time the peasants 
refused to pay tithes. Parliament attempted coercion in 1833, 
and wretched scenes of rioting and outrage followed. Local 
agitation failing, O'Connell tried parliamentary tactics; and, 
with his followers in parliament, known as O'Connell's Tail, 
joined the Liberals in 1835. This policy succeeded; and, in 
1838, the tithe system was abolished. 

But a greater issue, that of home rule, lay ahead. O'Con- 
nell continued the agitation, and thrilled his countrymen with 
promises of a parliament for Ireland. The movement reached 
its height in 1843. A " Young Ireland " party was formed, 
and enormous mass-meetings were held, where angry and sedi- 
tious words were spoken. But O'Connell, though a demagogue, 
was not a law-breaker; and, when the government forbade 
the Irish to bear arms and ordered their meetings to disperse, 
he yielded, and declared that he would not lead an Irish 
revolt. This determination to resort only to peaceful methods, 
though in the highest degree honorable, undoubtedly hurt his 
cause with the Irish, and from that time his power over his 
people began to decline. He was arrested by the British 
government, and convicted for sedition ; but eventually the sen- 
tence was set aside. In 1846, broken in health and spirits, 
he withdrew from the struggle, and the whole Irish movement 
collapsed. It was revived for a moment in 1848 by the mem- 
bers of " Young Ireland,'^ who were led by Smith O'Brien ; 
but it was effectually suppressed by force of arms, and num- 
bers of the leaders were arrested and transported to the penal 
colonies. For nearly twenty years the Irish people remained 
quiet, suffering hunger^ and poverty, and constantly liable to 
eviction at the hands of absentee landlords. 

1 For a description of the great famine of 1847, see Kendall, No. 137. 



1851] GREAT BRITAIN IN 1851. 511 

358. Foreign Policy (1830-1850). — During these years, Great 
Britain, chiefly by means of diplomacy, played an important 
part in foreign affairs, her purpose being to preserve the peace 
of Europe , which had lasted since 1815. With the other powers, 
she aided in settling dynastic difficulties in Spain and Portu- 
gal, and in compelling a revolting Egyptian pasha, Mehemet 
Ali, to withdraw from an attempt to break up the Otto- 
man empire. On two occasions she avoided difficulties with 
France, which, for a time, seemed to threaten their peaceful 
relations. She made two boundary treaties with the United 
States, one settling the Maine boundary in 1842, the other the 
northwestern or Oregon frontier in 1846 ; and, in 1850, signed 
a treaty, known as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, dealing with 
the construction of a ship canal across Central America.^ 

In the year 1848, a new revolution broke out in France, 
which ended in the abdication of Louis Philippe and the 
establishment of the second French republic. The success of 
this revolution roused the people of Italy, Austria, Prussia, 
and the lesser German states to make one more effort to win 
constitutions, and to obtain for themselves a share in govern- 
ment. Great Britain was not seriously affected by this wide- 
spread and at first largely successful movement. Only the 
Chartists and the Irish renewed their agitations. After the 
revolution of 1848-1849 had been suppressed by force of arms, 
Great Britain took part in certain of the diplomatic confer- 
ences that followed. One notable outcome of these negotia- 
tions was the arrangement made in London, in 1850 and 1852, 
whereby Great Britain, France, and Eussia guaranteed the 
integrity, and settled the royal succession, of Denmark, which 
had been threatened by the revolt of the duchies of Schleswig 
and Holstein. 

359. Great Britain in 1851. — The year 1851 seemed to 
usher in a golden age of peace. Free trade had been extended 
by the repeal of the navigation acts in 1849; material pros- 

iMacDonald, Select Documents, No. 77. 



612 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1851 

perity had been promoted by a rapid increase in commerce ; 
pauperism had been checked by the new poor laws ; drunken- 
ness had been diminished perceptibly by the efforts of the 
total abstinence societies, the sanitary condition of the towns 
improved by a series of public health measures, and crime 
lessened by the establishment of a police system and by the 
decrease of pauperism and drunkenness. A spiritual awaken- 
ing had followed a series of new religious movements, of which 
the Tractarian, or Oxford movement, was the most important. 
Literature took a practical turn : Macaulay defended the rule 
of the middle-class Whigs, in his History of England (1848) ; 
Grote glorified the cause of democracy, in his History of Greece 
(1846-1856); Dickens, in Pickwick Papers (1837), and Thack- 
eray, in Vanity Fair (1847-1848), breaking away from the 
romanticism of Scott, portrayed vividly the life of the upper 
and lower classes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ; 
while Carlyle, in Sartor Resartus (1833-1834), and Tennyson, in 
In Memoriam (1850), struck a new note of sincerity and duty. 
A great industrial exhibition promoted by the Prince Consort 
in 1851 seemed to inaugurate an era of peaceful commercial 
intercourse with all the world. 

But the era of peace had not yet come. Great issues had 
yet to be settled, both in Europe and America, before this 
happy result could be attained. Italy, Germany, and the 
United States were to engage in wars, in behalf of their national 
unity, before they could enter on their career as peaceful com- 
mercial and industrial states. With these wars Great Britain 
had but little to do. She was involved in no struggle of 
her own in behalf of national unity and constitutional 
government ; for she had already solved those problems 
peacefully for herself. Her concern was rather with com- 
merce, trade routes, and her territory in India ; and before 
Italy, America, and Germany began their struggles for consoli- 
dation and unity. Great Britain had been drawn into wars and 
disasters that were largely the outcome of her commercial 
expansion. 



1854] THE CRIMEAN WAR. 513 

360. The Crimean War. — In 1850 a small event in Palestine 
opened the whole Eastern question, that is, the question of 
the relations between Eussia and Turkey. Greek and Roman 
monks quarrelled over the control of certain sacred places in 
the Holy Land. The Czar, who was the head of the Greek 
church, took up the cause of the Greek Christians, and Louis 
Kapoleon, who had been elected president of the French Ke- 
public in 1848, championed the cause of the Roman Catholics. 
The difficulty was insignificant in itself, but became serious 
when the Czar demanded of the Sultan the right to act as the 
protector of all the Greek Christians in the Ottoman empire. 
Great Britain suspected that the Czar's purpose was to bring 
about the partition of Turkey among the powers, in order that 
he himself might seize Constantinople. Such an act would 
have been contrary to British policy, which demanded that 
the Ottoman Empire remain as it was. When, therefore, in 
1853, Czar Nicholas declared war against Turkey, sent troops 
into her territory, and destroyed a Turkish fleet at Sinope 
in the Black Sea (November 4), the British people rose in 
wrath and indignation and demanded of the Aberdeen ministry 
war for the punishment of the Russian despot. 

There were two reasons for this demand : in the first place, 
statesmen and people alike believed that if Russia seized Con- 
stantinople, the British route to India would be cut off, and 
their possessions in India threatened with attack ; in the sec- 
ond place, the British people looked on the Czar Nicholas as a 
despot, and deemed him responsible for the failure of the Hun- 
garian struggle for independence and the revolution of 1848- 
1849 in general. They desired not only to weaken his power, 
but actually to humiliate him. Louis Napoleon, crowned 
Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, in 1852, also wanted 
war to render his throne secure at home and to win glory 
abroad. British suspicion and hatred of Russia forced Aber- 
deen, against his will, to join with Napoleon in a declaration 
of war, March, 1854, Troops were despatched to the Darda- 
nelles J but before any actual fighting took place, the Czar, at 



514 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1854 

the request of Austria, whom he wished to keep neutral, with- 
drew his troops from Turkish territory. This act did not, 
however, satisfy the British people. They desired that the 
Czar should be humbled and that Russia should suffer as she 
had made others suffer. Therefore an attack on the great 
fortress of Sebastopol in the Crimea was planned; and in 
September, 1854, the Crimean war was begun. 

This great duel, between Russia on one side, and England, 
France, Turkey, and eventually Sardinia on the other, lasted 
for a year. Meanwhile a congress of diplomats at Vienna 
tried to settle matters peacefully, but without the slightest 
success. At the battle of the Alma, September 30, 1854, the 
allies won a bloody victory ; and in November, the battles of 
Balaklava^ and Inkerman were fought. These engagements 
were indecisive, and the allies in December settled down to a 
regular siege. The winter of 1854 and 1855 was a time of 
misery, suffering, and death for British and French soldiers 
alike, due to insufficient food, bad housing, epidemics, and 
poor hospital service. In England popular wrath at the ineffi- 
ciency of the government drove Aberdeen from the ministry 
(1855).^ His successor, Palmerston, pushed the war with 
vigor, and finally, after careful preparations and many assaults, 
Sebastopol was taken, on September 5, 1855. The death of 
Nicholas I, the February before, made easier the attainment 
of peace. Palmerston and the British people, having made 
their preparations for a continuation of the war, were loath to 
bring the struggle to a close ; but the other powers were tired 
of the useless conflict and believed that Russia had suffered 
enough. In January, 1856, peace was agreed upon; and in 
April, at the Congress of Paris, the final treaty was signed. 

Great Britain gained little from the Crimean war except 
experience; but she had the satisfaction of seeing the diplo- 
mats at Paris declare the Ottoman empire a European power 
in good standing, and pledge themselves to maintain its 

1 Kendall, No. 140. 2 Kendall, No. 141. 



1849] INDIA AND THE GREAT MUTINY. 515 

integrity. In failing to reserve the right to interfere for the 
purpose of compelling the Sultan to carry out his promises, 
the powers committed one of the greatest diplomatic blunders 
in history. The battles of the war form a brilliant page in 
Great Britain's military annals; but the negotiations that 
followed were not creditable to her diplomats. After 1856, 
Great Britain lost influence in the councils of Europe and 
withdrew more and more from Continental affairs. 

361. India and the Great Mutiny. — If the route to India 
had been really threatened by the Czar, the war might well 
have been worth what it cost ; for India was rapidly becoming 
one of Great Britain's greatest possessions. Since the days of 
Wellesley, the conquest of India had gone steadily on. The 
marquis of Hastings had completed Wellesley 's work by ex- 
tending the powers of the East India Company and bringing to 
an end the wars with the native tribes. In 1813 the com- 
pany's monopoly of the Indian trade had been taken away, 
and in 1833, when its charter was renewed, the monopoly 
of trade with China was abolished. This new arrangement 
limited the business of the company to matters of administra- 
tion and greatly improved its rule. In 1841 and 1842 the 
British invaded Afghanistan, only to retreat ignominiously 
after losing a large part of their force. After this experience, 
British governor-generals let Afghanistan alone and contented 
themselves with smaller gains. Scinde was annexed in 1842 ; 
after two fiercely contested wars, in 1848 and 1849, the Punjab 
was won from the Sikhs, who, under the tactful administra- 
tion of Henry and John Lawrence, became in the end faithful 
subjects of Great Britain. 

The appointment of Lord Dalhousie as governor-general in 
1849 marked the introduction of an unfortunate policy. Dal- 
housie annexed vassal states and forced upon them British 
methods of administration and law without regard for native 
customs and prejudices. In consequence there was a wide- 
spread discontent, and a vast deal of intriguing and conspiracy 
among the native princes and native troops, upon whom the 



516 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1857 

power of the East India Company largely depended. Only a 
direct and special grievance was wanting to change this dis- 
content into open revolt. 

The introduction of a cartridge greased, as was believed, 
with cow's or pig's fat, was interpreted as an attempt of the 
British to deprive the native soldiers of their caste. In biting 
the cartridge, Mohammedans, to whom swine were unholy, 
deemed themselves defiled; and Hindoos, to whom the cow 
was sacred, deemed themselves guilty of sacrilege. In 1857 
the Sepoy regiments of Calcutta and Delhi revolted, and soon 
most of northern India was aflame. British officers were 
shot, women and children massacred, and barracks and quar- 
ters destroyed. The slaughter at Cawnpore (July, 1857) was 
only the worst of many tragedies. The siege of Delhi (June- 
September, 1857), the defence and relief of Lucknow (Sep- 
tember-November, 1857),^ the second capture of Lucknow 
(March, 1858), and the final defeat of the rebels (June, 1858), 
are the chief events in a great struggle which created such 
heroes as John Lawrence, John Nicholson, Havelock, Outram, 
and Colin Campbell. After the mutiny was suppressed, parlia- 
ment abolished the East India Company, and India was taken 
under the control of the British government.^ 

362. Great Britain in the Far East : Relations with China. — 
Growing trade had brought the East India Company into con- 
tact with independent peoples on the borders of India. There 
had been petty quarrels with Persia and Burma; but most 
serious of all were the troubles with China, an empire which 
had always refused, as far as possible, to have any dealings 
with the outside world. A limited trade, controlled entirely 
by the East India Company, had sprung up with China ; and 
after the withdrawal of the monopoly, in 1833, this trade 
had been thrown open to all. The result was a rapid increase 
of smuggling, particularly in opium, the importation of which 
into China was rigidly forbidden. Attempts of Chinese offi- 

1 Kendall, No. 143. 2 Kendall, No. 144 ; Lee, No. 231. 



1840] GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES. 517 

cials to enforce this regulation had led to high-handed measures 
on both sides, which gradually brought on the Opium War of 
1839-1842. This war was dishonorable to Great Britain on 
whatever pretence defended, but it brought about the over- 
throw of China's policy of isolation. The treaty of Nanking 
(1842) threw open five Chinese ports to British trade and 
ceded Hongkong to Great Britain; and it gave the British 
a foothold in China long before other nations had thought 
of concerning themselves with affairs in the Pacific. British 
influence, notably in the Yang-tse region, was increased during 
the years 1857-1860, by another war in which Great Britain 
and France joined for the purpose of demanding reparation 
from China for so-called deeds of aggression and violations of 
treaty rights. The treaty of Tientsin (1860) opened additional 
ports to the British. About the same time Japan began to 
admit the commerce of a few nations to her ports, and in so 
doing created a new market for British goods. 

363. Great Britain and her Colonies. — While British com- 
panies and merchants were thus extending British trade in 
the East, British colonists were building up important settle- 
ments in other parts of the world. Colonization in British 
America, Canada, and the West Indies had been going on for 
two centuries; but colonization in West Africa and at The 
Gape, and in Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and other 
islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans, was new. As yet, 
however, colonies and colonists had not begun to play their 
great part in British history. 

Canada and the West Indies, oldest of the colonies remaining 
to Great Britain in America, had both suffered from bad manage- 
ment. A rebellion in Canada in 1837 and 1838 had disclosed 
deep discontent among the French inhabitants there. In con- 
sequence, in 1840, upper and lower Canada were united, and the 
government was somewhat reorganized. Gradually, during the 
years that followed, responsible government and colonial con- 
trol of expenditures were granted to the Canadians, — a new 
policy which culminated in the creation of modern Canada by 



518 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1830 

the Act of 1867. This act joined all the Canadian provinces 
except Newfoundland into the single " Dominion of Canada," 
with a single constitution for all. In the West Indies the 
emancipation of the slaves, the inadequate compensation to 
slave owners, and the introduction of free trade had aroused 
resentment, which in Jamaica took the form of protest in 1836 
and of revolt in 1865. Free trade was opposed by West India 
planters because it opened the British market to the commerce 
of other colonies, and so destroyed their monopoly. 

During the first half of the nineteenth century the colonies 
in Africa and the Pacific were deemed by British statesmen 
useless and expensive possessions, from which little profit 
could be obtained. Australia had been employed at first as a 
convenient place for transporting criminals ;^ but when system- 
atic colonization began, about 1830, in Australia, New Zealand, 
Tasmania, and The Cape, questions of convicts, squatters, land 
sales, emigrants, and the relations with native Maoris and the 
Dutch Boers engaged the attention of parliament. Govern- 
ment in these distant lands was at first largely military, and 
when a regular civil administration was introduced, everything 
was managed by orders sent from the goverinnent offices in 
Downing Street, London. Such a method was bound to result 
in many mistakes and failures, for little real knowledge of the 
needs of the colonists could be possessed by government offi- 
cials many thousand miles away. 

The policy of government by orders from England gave way, 
soon after 1830, to another, based on the Whig doctrine of 
letting the colonies alone (laissez /aire). Statesmen began to 
advocate the plan of granting to the colonies responsible 
government, with the right to manage their own waste lands 
and finance and to conduct their own military defence. The 
reorganization of Canada in 1840 was in the main an application 
of the " let alone " policy. The introduction of representative 
institutions in Australia began with New South Wales and 

1 Lee, No. 226. 



1860] BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY, 1860-1870. 519 

South Australia in 1842, and was carried well forward by a 
great constitutional act in 1850.* New Zealand received atten- 
tion in 1846 and again in 1851. To many British statesmen 
these measures seemed to foreshadow eventual separation of 
the colonies from the mother country. Some writers of the 
time thought that such a result would be a blessing ; but 
others, with more foresight, believed that colonial self-govern- 
ment was not inconsistent with loyal attachment to Great 
Britain. The faith of the latter was to find ample justification 
later, when, after 1880, the idea of a union of mother country 
and colonies in a great federal empire began to take hold of 
men's thoughts and to shape the policy of the government. 

364. Great Britain's Foreign Policy : The Trent Affair and the 
Alabama Case. — Great Britain could not keep entirely free from 
Continental and American affairs. When the Polish insurrec- 
tion broke out, in 1863, Lord John Eussell, foreign minister in 
Palmerston's cabinet, upheld the cause of the Poles, but re- 
fused to join Napoleon III in a war in their behalf with Eus- 
sia. Eussell also defended the integrity of Denmark, when in 
1864 Bismarck made war on that kingdom and compelled the 
king, Christian IX, to renounce his right over the duchies of 
Schleswig and Holstein. After Palmerston's death, in 1865, 
Great Britain remained absolutely neutral during the Austro- 
Prussian war of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. 

Eelations with America were more serious. The Civil War 
stirred the British people deeply, and the opinions and sympa- 
thies of statesmen and people alike were much divided. In 
the main the upper classes and government officials, even 
Gladstone among the number, upheld the cause of the South,^ 
while the working classes and radical leaders, like John 
Bright, who hated slavei^, were almost to a man in sympathy 
with the North. Eussell refused to join with Napoleon III in 



1 For the discovery of gold in Australia, see Lee, Nos. 227, 228. 

2 Compare the well-known poem in Punch, printed in Kendall, No. 146. 
The cartoons in Punch and the articles in the London Times stirred up a 
great deal of bitter feeling in the North against Great Britain. 



520 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1861 

recognizing the Southern States, but came very near going to 
war in what is known as the Trent Affair.* In 1861 the Con- 
federate government had sent two Southerners, Mason and 
Slidell, on an English mail steamer, The Trent, to seek aid 
abroad. Captain Wilkes of the United States navy stopped 
the steamer and took off the envoys. Great Britain, on the 
ground that the right to search neutral vessels in time of war 
had been given up by the European powers at the Congress of 
Paris, in 1856, demanded the surrender of the commissioners. 
The United States had not been represented at the Congress of 
Paris, and many in the North were inclined to resist Great 
Britain's demand. But President Lincoln declared that the 
United States had always opposed the right of search ; and the 
queen and the prince consort threw their influence on the side 
of peace. The United States surrendered the commissioners 
and the crisis was safely passed. 

Lord John Russell was strangely negligent in allowing the 
Confederate government to fit out in English ports a num- 
ber of cruisers, of which the chief was the Alabama, and to 
send them out to prey on the commerce of the North. For 
this indiscretion England was compelled to pay ^15,500,000 in 
1871. The sympathy of the working class with the Northern 
cause was the more remarkable in that the Northern blockade 
of Southern ports brought on a cotton famine in Lancashire 
that caused terrible distress among the employees of the cotton 
mills, and affected workmen in other trades also. Yet their 
abhorrence of slavery outweighed their personal discomfort, and 
their noble self-sacrifice without doubt influenced the govern- 
ment, always susceptible to public opinion, to preserve strict 
neutrality. 

365. New Parties and New Issues. — The working classes were 
growing in importance and influence. Their material condi- 
tion was improving; and they had not only begun to band 
together in trade unions and federations, but were holding 

1 Kendall. No. 145. 



1865] 



NEW PARTIES AND NEW ISSUES. 



521 



congresses to discuss questions relating to themselves and 
their welfare. They began to agitate for legislation in their 
own behalf, and continued the work of the Chartists, but by 
entirely different methods. They saw that their first efforts 
must be directed to the great task of obtaining the right to 
vote. As long, however, as 
Palmerston lived and the 
old Liberals were in control, 
little was to be expected. 
The old Liberals disliked 
the Radicals, and were satis- 
fied with the results of the 
reform of 1832, a fact that 
was proved in 1859 and again 
in 1860, when reform mea- 
sures were definitely rejected 
by the House of Commons. 
After Falmerston's death 
in 1865, new ideas and in- 
fluences began to prevail, 
and a new Liberal party to 
come to the front. This 
party, whose leader was 
Gladstone, adopted in part 
the doctrines of the Radi- 
cals, and, discarding the old 
idea of laissez faire, began 
to advocate a wider suffrage and new legislation for the im- 
provement of the masses. The cry was " peace, retrenchment, 
and reform." Side by side with the new liberalism went a 
new conservatism, the chief exponent of which was Disraeli. 
The members of the new Conservative party laid more stress 
upon legislation for the people than upon the extension of the 
suffrage ; that is, they believed in government for the people 
rather than by the people. They believed in a moderate exten- 
sion of the suffrage, but held that legislative power should be in 




Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of 
Beaconstield) . 

From a photograph. 



522 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. ^1867 

the hands of educated and wealthy men. Their leading articles 
of political faith were a firm foreign policy, an extension of 
British territory in all parts of the world, and a' federation of 
all the colonies in a great British empire. This policy differed 
from that of the Liberals in that it entailed, not peace, but 
war; not retrenchment, but heavy expenditures on army and 
navy; not legislation shaped only for the United Kingdom, 
but legislation for the greater Britain at home and beyond the 
seas. 

366. The Second Reform Bill. — Now that both parties 
favored an extension of the franchise, electoral reform could 
not long be delayed. The high-minded sacrifices of the Lan- 
cashire employees, the victory of the North in the Civil War 
in America, and the manner in which a victorious democratic 
government had dealt with the conquered South, disbanded its 
army, and returned to the -ways of peace ; meetings of London 
workingmen in Hyde Park and. other meetings held in the 
great cities of the centre and north, at which the right to vote 
was demanded, — all these events influenced the policy of 
parties. In 1866 the Eussell-Glad stone ministry brought in a 
reform bill, but it was defeated by a party of old Liberals, 
known as the Adullamites, who opposed electoral reform. The 
Derby-Disraeli ministry that followed introduced another bill, 
because it desired to show the working classes that, after all, 
the Conservatives w^ere their best friends. This measure, after 
many amendments, was passed in August, 1867. 

This reform bill of 1867 granted a suffrage that was far 
from universal. It reduced the property qualification in the 
boroughs to the payment of taxes ; that is, it gave the right to 
vote to all householders instead of, as formerly, only to those 
who occupied houses worth £10 a year. It also allowed all 
lodgers to vote who had resided for a year in the borough and 
occupied rooms renting for at least £10 a year unfurnished. 
Thus the boroughs were greatly benefited. by the bill. The 
counties were not so favored. The only change that was 
made in them was the reduction of the property qualification of 



1868] THE FIRST REFORM MINISTRY OF GLADSTONE. 523 



the tenant-at-will from £50 to £12. Seats in parliament were 
redistributed, though in this particular the reform was very 
incomplete. Eleven boroughs lost their seats and thirty- 
five more were reduced from two members to one each. Of 
the fifty-eight seats thus gained, nineteen were given to Eng- 
lish boroughs, thirty to English counties, and nine to Scot- 
land. The reform gave the franchise for the first time to 
the workingmen of the cities, and so destroyed the supremacy 
of the middle classes, who had been in control since 1832. 
Though agricultural laborers and miners were still denied the 
right to vote, England became in large part a democratic state. 

367. The First Reform Ministry of Gladstone. — Dissolution of 
parliament in 1868 was followed by new elections under the 
reform act of 1867. The 
great change that had come 
over Great Britain at once 
became manifest. New 
voters appeared, elections 
were contested as they never 
had been before, and electors 
scanned carefully the legis- 
lative programmes of the 
two parties. The new Lib- 
erals — Liberals and Radi- 
ca}s — won by a majority 
of one hundred and twenty, 
and Gladstone at once 
formed a ministry committed 
to an important programme 
of reform. 

The first measures that 
were introduced concerned 

Ireland. From 1865 to 1868 the Irish people had been engaged 
in a struggle, known as the Fenian movement, for separation 
from England. Many Fenians, members of an Irish secret 
society, had been arrested, and three hanged for murder. In 




William Ewart Gladstone. 
From an engraving. 



524 ERA OF REFOKM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1869 

a speech in Lancashire, Gladstone said that the Irish upas tree 
had three branches : the established church, the system of land 
tenure, and the system of national education. The first and 
second of these evils he attacked immediately. In July, 1869, 
after a long and wearisome struggle, parliament passed a bill 
disestablishing the Irish state church. In May, 1870, it passed 
an Irish land bill, which was designed to protect tenants from 
eviction as long as they paid their rent and to compel landlords 
to compensate evicted tenants for improvements made; the bill 
also provided for government loans for the purchase of tenan- 
cies, the loan to be paid back to the government by the tenant 
in annual instalments. 

After the Irish measures had been passed, Forster, acting 
minister of education, brought in a bill for the national con- 
trol of elementary education. The bill was finally passed, 
August 9, 1870, and provided for a system of local schools for 
children. Though private schools still existed, this act estab- 
lished public schools in the districts, and required that under 
certain conditions children between five and twelve years of age 
should be obliged to attend. The next year the universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge were thrown open to Roman Catholics 
a,nd Dissenters alike, by the abolition of all religious tests. 
These measures proved very beneficial to education in England. 

Reform followed reform. Cardwell, the minister of war, 
attacked some of the abuses in the army. Two very important 
changes were made. First, the system of purchasing commis- 
sions in the army was abolished, and promotion was made de- 
pendent, not on rank, but on merit and industry. Secondly, 
the long term service of twenty-five years was replaced by a 
short term service, whereby a man after serving at least six 
years actively in the army was to pass into the reserve, though 
he was liable at any time during a succeeding six years to be 
called to the front. In 1871, in order to conciliate the work- 
ing classes, Gladstone put through a measure incorporating 
trade unions and legalizing strikes, but forbidding all acts of 
intimidation. 



1875] DlSRAELrS IMPERIAL POLICY. 525 

But Gladstone was trying to do too much, and each meas- 
ure alienated some part of the British people. A licensing 
act angered the liquor dealers; the army reform aroused the 
Conservatives ; the elementary education act incensed the Non- 
conformists; the Irish land laws embittered the landlords; 
and the trade unions act failed to satisfy the workingmen. 
In 1873 the ministry, having been defeated on a measure con- 
cerning the Dublin University, resigned, and, when the new 
elections of 1874 were held, the Conservatives were victorious, 
with a majority of fifty. Disraeli became prime minister and 
Derby minister of foreign affairs. For the first time in thirty- 
two years the Conservatives controlled in the House of Com- 
mons a majority upon which they could rely. 

368. Disraeli's Imperial Policy: the Indian Empire. — The 
new ministry interested itself to a certain extent in legislation 
for the benefit of the working classes, but in the main was 
content with the inauguration of a brilliant foreign policy. 
Gladstone had cared but little for affairs abroad, and had 
rigidly kept free from all foreign entanglements. As far as 
the colonies were concerned, the relations between them and 
the British government were not at all friendly in the years 
1869-1870, and the Gladstone ministry would probably have 
let them go had they expressed a desire for separation. 
Neither Gladstone nor Disraeli seems to have been interested 
in the colonies as such at this time, and ten years passed 
before British statesmen awoke to a realization of the future 
importance of the colonies. Disraeli was interested in India, 
and he determined to make that possession, in a new and vivid 
sense, an appanage of the crown. 

The Suez Canal had been constructed in 1869, and at once 
had given a new importance to the Mediterranean route to 
India. In order to control this canal, Disraeli, in 1875, pur- 
chased, for £4,000,000, the one hundred and seventy-six 
thousand shares which the Khedive of Egypt owned in the 
canal. The same year he despatched the Prince of Wales to 
India, ostensibly to hunt tigers, but in reality to awaken a new 



526 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1876 

enthusiasm for Great Britain and to build up a closer connec- 
tion between Great Britain and India. The next year Disraeli 
sent, as viceroy to India, Lord Lytton, a man with imperial 
ideas like his own, and pushed through parliament a measure 
called the Eoyal Titles Bill, conferring on the British sovereign 
the title of Emperor or Empress of India. The climax of 
this policy came when, in a great durbar at Delhi, the old 




Th.c Suez Canal. 

capital of the Mongols, January 1, 1877, in the presence of a 
great concourse of sovereigns, Indian nobles and potentates, 
ambassadors and soldiers. Queen Victoria was formally pro- 
claimed Empress of India.^ 

In dealing with India a strict regard was shown for all their 
native customs and prejudices and every effort was made to 
arouse the enthusiasm of the Indian peoples for Great Britain. 
Natives were employed on the same footing with Englishmen 



1 Lee, No. 232. 



1878] RUSSO-TURKISH WAR — CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 527 



in the departments of police, finance, and justice; local coun- 
cils were created ; liberty of the press was allowed ; and later, 
an Indian national congress, 
composed of high-caste Brah- 
mins, was permitted to meet 
to propose and discuss re- 
forms in administration. This 
method of treating the native 
peoples of India, which had 
first been tried by Lord Mayo 
in 1872, marked a great change 
from the centralized system 
of Dalhousie in the days 
before the Sepoy mutiny. 

369. The Russo-Turkish 
War and the Congress of Berlin. 
— The new interest in India, 
and Disraeli's desire to main- 
tain the Mediterranean route 
thither, almost brought on a 
war with Eussia in 1878. In 
1875 the Christian peoples of 
Turkey rose in revolt against 
the oppressive measures of the Turkish tax-gatherers. The 
atrocious methods employed by Turkey to suppress the upris- 
ing aroused the indignation of the people of western Europe. 
Gladstone, who had withdrawn from public life after 1874, 
emerged from his retirement, and in pamphlets and speeches 
on the " Bulgarian atrocities " scored the policy of Disraeli for 
its inhumanity in supporting the Turk. The Czar Alexander 
(1855-1881) came out definitely in support of the oppressed 
peoples of Turkey, and, after the powers had failed in all 
attempts at mediation, declared war on Turkey, April 24, 1877. 
Public opinion in England, stirred by Gladstone's speeches, 
forced Disraeli to remain strictly neutral. The Turks fought 
bravely during the winter of 1877-1878, and in the siege of 




Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, 

IN 1877. 

From a photograph. 



528 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1878 

Plevna checked for a time the advance of Eussia. But their 
efforts were vain, and in January, 1878, Russian troops suc- 
ceeded in penetrating to the contines of Constantinople. 

The British, ever suspicious of Eussia, now believed that 
the long-dreaded occupation of Constantinople was at hand, 
and were ready to take up arms should Eussia advance a step 
farther. Happily the danger was averted by Eussia's remain- 
ing where she wasj but, unfortunately, the Eussian envoy, 
Ignatieff, compelled the Sultan to sign the treaty of San 
Stefano, which practically dismembered the Ottoman empire 
and left the Sultan with little territory in Europe. Immedi- 
ately Great Britain and Austria declared that they would not 
accept the treaty, and demanded that it be submitted for 
revision to a general congress of the European powers. The 
Czar yielded, and in June, 1878, the congress met at Berlin. 
There Disraeli and Salisbury carried on a diplomatic war with 
the Eussian representative, Gortchakoff, and came off victorious 
on nearly every point. Turkey was left in possession of the 
main part of her territory, though Servia, Eumania, and 
Montenegro were declared independent, and Bulgaria, though 
remaining under Turkish authority, was given powers of 
self-government. Great Britain obtained the right to occupy 
Cyprus. Disraeli returned to England, "bearing peace with 
honor." But in general it cannot be said that the treaty of 
Berlin accomplished all that it might have done for the solution 
of the Eastern question. 

370. Wars in Afghanistan and South Africa. — War, thus nar- 
rowly averted in the southeast, was provoked in Afghanistan 
and Africa. The war in Afghanistan was due to the old 
rivalry between Eussia and Great Britain. Disraeli viewed 
the appearance of a Eussian ambassador at Kabul in 1878 as 
evidence of Eussia's determination to obtain control of Afghan- 
istan. Deeming this act a breach of the neutrality of that 
country, he sent an army in November and compelled Eussia 
to withdraw. But the massacre of the British residents in 
Kabul, in September, 1879, provoked a continuation of the 



1880] 



THE CRISIS IN IRELAND. 



529 



struggle, and ended in the placing of Abdurrahman, a friend of 
England, on the throne as ameer of Afghanistan. 

In South Africa, the discovery of the diamond fields of Kim- 
berley led England to annex West Griqualand in 1887 and the 
Transvaal the same year. The latter state had been founded 
by the Boers in 1848, but by 1876 it had, as a Transvaal news 
paper well said, " an empty treasury, an unsuccessful war, an 
increasing debt, a total loss of credit, an obstinate president, 
and a discontented people." Therefore, believing the condi- 
tion of the state to be a source of common peril. Great Britain 
annexed the Transvaal in 
1877, and for four years, 
whether rightly or wrongly, 
occupied it. The governor. 
Sir Bartle Frere, next under- 
took the subjugation of the 
neighboring Zulus, but met 
with an unexpectedly stub- 
born resistance. Not until 
1879 was the war successfully 
completed, and then only 
after reenforcements had ar- 
rived under General Wolseley. 
Disraeli's policy not only 
proved expensive, but savored 
somewhat of ostentation. It 
led to the neglect of home 
interests, to half-hearted 
measures of reform, and to 
widespread discontent in 

England. When, therefore, the general elections of 1880 were 
held, the Conservatives were driven from power, and the Liberals, 
with a parliamentary majority of one hundred, returned to office. 
371. The Crisis in Ireland. — The second Gladstone ministry 
was significant for two reasons. In it appeared for the first 
time two members of the Radical party — Joseph Chamberlain 




Joseph Chamberlain, in 1885. 
From a photograph. 



530 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1880 



and Sir Charles Dilke, the first of whom was to become famous 
in the years that were to follow. The growing importance of 
the Eadicals was due largely to the reform of 1867, which had 
given increased voting privileges to the boroughs where lay the 
strength of their party. Equally significant was the appear- 
ance in the House of Commons of eighty Irish members, under 
the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, an able, but un- 
scrupulous, champion of the 
Irish cause. The Irish were 
now seeking, not indepen- 
dence, but home rule; that 
is, independent self-govern- 
ment for Ireland. In order 
to gain attention, Parnell 
began to employ new tactics 
of obstruction in parliament, 
while other leaders in Ire- 
land organized the Irish Na- 
tional Land League (1879), 
for the purpose of fighting 
the landlords by defending 
evicted tenants and of ob- 
taining, if possible, a reform 
of the Irish land system. 

The League encouraged 
the employment of all legiti- 
mate methods to injure the 
landlords. Among them was the " boycott," used for the first 
time against Captain Boycott, an English agent of Lord Erne 
in County Mayo, who had served notices on Lord Erne's tenants!" 
But the followers of the League did not always show self-control, 
and the burning of farms, the mutilation of cattle, and even 
murder became the order of the day. The government decided 
■on coercion, and, in spite of the obstruction tactics employed by 
the Irish members in parliament, succeeded in passing a coercion 
act, February 25, 1881. So bitter was the Irish opposition to this 




Charles Stewart Parnell. 
From a photograph. 



1884] REFORM BILL OF 1884. 531 

policy and so distressing the operation of the act, that Glad- 
stone finally changed his tactics. He began to treat with Par- 
nell and other leaders, who had in the meantime been shut up 
in Kilmainham jail, and offered to compromise. But the good 
results of these overtures were destroyed in May, 1882, when, 
in Phoenix Park, Dublin, a band of conspirators of the lower 
classes, who wished to render conciliation impossible, murdered 
Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed secretary for 
Ireland. A second coercion bill was passed, but it did little to 
abate the agitation. 

372. Reform Bill of 1884. — Amid all this excitement, while 
Ireland was revengeful and sullen, Gladstone redeemed a former 
promise to extend the British franchise, and to grant the coun- 
ties the same privileges that had been given in 1867 to the towns. 
The measure was introduced on February 24, 1884, and in its 
main provision was exceedingly simple. It merely extended 
to the counties the £10 franchise of 1832 and the household 
and lodger franchises of 1867, thereby giving to both boroughs 
and counties a uniform electoral privilege.^ It also created a 
new class of voters, by granting the right to vote to certain 
persons who occupied houses without being either owners or 
tenants. The Conservatives did not oppose the measure, but 
would not support it until the Liberals made known what they 
proposed to do in the matter of disenfranchising old boroughs 
and redistributing seats. By this act some two million voters, 
largely agricultural and mining laborers, were added to. the 
body of electors. By the Distribution Bill,^ passed the next 
year, all boroughs and districts with less than fifteen thousand 
inhabitants were deprived of their seats, which were distributed 
among the larger towns and counties in proportion to their 
size. The number of seats in parliament was increased by 
thirty. England obtained eighteen additional members, Scot- 
land twelve, while the representation of Ireland and Wales 
remained unchanged. 

1 Adams and Stephens, No. 275, 2 Adams and Stephens, No. 270. 



532 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1880 

373. Gladstone's Policy in Afghanistan, South Africa, and 
Egypt. — The Gladstone government was distinctly not in- 
terested in affairs abroad. In 1880 it had withdrawn the 
British garrisons from Kabul and Kandahar. When in 
December of the same year the Boers struck for indepen- 
dence, an attempt was made to coerce them. But the British 
forces were repulsed at Langs Nek and afterward defeated 
with heavy loss at Majuba Hill, February 27, 1881. Then the 
British government made a treaty, guaranteeing to the Boers 
self-government under certain specified terms and conditions, 
which were intended to secure the rights both of the burghers 
and of the British residents in the Transvaal. In 1884 the 
vague terms of this treaty were better defined by giving 
Great Britain entire control over foreign affairs, leaving the 
Boers free to manage internal affairs in their own way.^ 

Similar in character were Great Britain's relations with 
Egypt. When the Khedive became bankrupt in 1878, a dual 
control by Great Britain and France was established. This in- 
trusion of aliens into the land aroused a national party in 
Egypt, under Colonel Arabi Bey, which aimed at the libera- 
tion of Egypt. France refused to interfere ; and in 1882, 
after forty-nine Europeans had been massacred at Alexandria, 
Great Britain took up the war alone, and General Wolseley 
defeated Arabi at Tel-el-Kebir on September 13. But the war 
had a tragic end. Taking advantage of the disorganized state 
into which Egypt had fallen, the southern provinces revolted 
and threw off the rule of the Khedive. At their head appeared 
one Mohammed Achmed, claiming to be the Mahdi, or Guide, 
the representative of Allah on earth. The revolt soon assumed 
vast proportions, and two armies sent against the Mahdi's fol- 
lowers in 1883, one under Hicks Pasha and another under 
Baker Pasha, were in large part destroyed. Then the Glad- 
stone ministry, at its wit's end, despatched General Gordon to 
Khartum to deal with the Mahdi. But Gordon was soon sur- 

1 For the treaties with the Boers, see Lee, Nos. 233, 234, 235. 



1886] THE FIRST HOME RULE BILL. 533 

rounded by the Sudanese, and at first Gladstone did nothing 
to relieve him. Finally, however, shamed into action by pub- 
lic opinion, he sent a relief expedition under General Wilson, 
which arrived too late. Khartum had fallen and Gordon had 
been slain a few days before (January 26, 1885.) For the 
time being, the Sudan was lost to the Khedive. 

In colonial matters the government was equally unsuccess- 
ful. In 1884 Bisiliarck, Chancellor of the German Empire, 
who was determined to make Germany a great colonial power, 
was able to occupy important territories in Africa and to estab- 
lish German colonies in Namaqua and Damaraland, Kamerun, 
Togoland, and German East Africa. This enterprising effort 
of a neighboring power to obtain colonies in Africa roused the 
British government from its apathy to all matters colonial, and 
stirred in the British people a new interest in the acquirement 
of colonial territory. 

374. First Attempt to grant Home Rule to Ireland. — The 
Liberals were defeated in parliament in 1885, and Lord Salis- 
bury became the head of a Conservative ministry. After a 
short time he dissolved parliament and appealed to the 
country. The elections of 1885, the first held under the new 
electoral law, resulted in a victory for the Liberals, and Glad- 
stone became minister for the third time. 

The appearance of eighty-six Irish Home Eulers in parlia- 
ment made it evident that if Gladstone were to command a 
majority, he must advocate measures favorable to home rule. 
On April 8, 1886, he brought in his first Home Rule Bill. By 
it he proposed to give Ireland a separate parliament, a separate 
ministry, and control of taxes and certain specified revenues. 
According to this plan, no Irish members were to sit in the 
British parliament. The two countries were to have the same 
king, and the British parliament was to have a certain control 
over Irish law-making and Irish revenues ; but otherwise Ire- 
land was to be independent of England. The measure 
aroused great opposition, and was defeated in June, 1886.* 

1 Kendall, No. 132. 



534 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1886 



Unfortunately for the Liberals, this first attempt to grant home 
rule to Ireland led a body of able men, Chamberlain, John 
Bright, Hartington, and others, to withdraw from the Liberal 
party. These men formed a new group, the Liberal Unionists, 
so called because, while adhering to Liberal principles, they 

desired union with Ireland. 
In 1886, when new elec- 
tions took place, the Lib- 
erals were defeated, and 
Lord Salisbury became 
prime minister. 

375 Second Salisbury 
Ministry (i 886-1 892). — 
The second Salisbury min- 
istry endeavored to con- 
ciliate Ireland: in 1887, 
by reducing rents ; and in 
1888 and 1891, by appro- 
priating money to en- 
able tenants to buy their 
lands. A permanent land 
commission was appointed, 
and in the decade that fol- 
lowed, many tenants made 
application for loans from 
the government. The 
policy had a good effect, 
and certainly was followed 
by a decrease of crime in 
Ireland. This result was due in part to the disruption of the 
Irish party in 1890. 

Among the most important measures of the Salisbury minis- 
try was that of 1888 reorganizing local government. This 
new act supplemented the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, 
by taking the control of the counties out of the hands of the 
local aristocracy or country gentlemen, and giving it to govern- 




LoRD Salisbury. 
From a photograph. 



1893] THE SECOND HOME RULE BILL. 535 

ing boards elected by the ratepayers. The importance of the 
change lay in this, that whereas hitherto nearly every person 
intrusted with local administration had been, theoretically at 
least, appointed by the crown, by the new law he was to be 
elected by the ratepayers. Such a change amounted to a rev- 
olution. The powers conferred on the counties in 1888 were 
extended to the parishes in 1894, and that which was at first 
done for England was finally extended to Scotland and Ireland 
also. 

376. The Second Attempt to grant Home Rule to Ireland. — 
The local government acts were in part a concession to the 
growing radical and socialistic elements that for a decade had 
been gaining strength in G-reat Britain. The most noteworthy 
victory of the Progressists, as these Eadicals were called, was 
in London, where in 1892 they gained control of the London 
County Council. Though they lost their majority in 1895, they 
were again successful in 1898 and 1901. Side by side with the 
Progressists appeared the Labor party, of Avhich the most 
remarkable leader was John Burns.^ But neither of these 
parties won many seats in parliament, though some of their 
members sat as Liberals. In the elections of 1900 only two, 
Keir Hardy and Bell of Derby, were returned as avowedly 
Labor members, John Burns standing as a Liberal. 

When parliament was dissolved in 1892, the Liberal party 
made home rule and the improvement of the condition of labor 
its chief issues before the country. The elections resulted in 
a Liberal majority of forty, but a majority wholly dependent on 
Irish votes. True to his promise, Gladstone, on February 13, 
1893, presented his second home rule measure. He demanded 
for Ireland a legislature of two houses, with power to make 
laws, and an executive, like a colonial governor. He demanded 
that Irish peers should sit in the British House of Lords and 
eighty Irish members in the British House of Commons. The 



1 The first labor representative in parliament had been Joseph Arch. See 
Kendall, No. 138. 



536 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1893 

home rule thus granted was somewhat less extensive than that 
provided for in 1886. In the House of Commons the debate 
on this measure continued for three months, and the oppo- 
sition did all in its power to prevent the passage of the 
bill. The long strain, the bitter feelings aroused, the attempts 
of the government to check debate, ended in a pitched battle 
on the floor of the house, July 29, which resulted in battered 
hats and torn clothing. The bill was finally carried by a 
majority of thirty-four ; but the House of Lords, feeling that so 
small a majority, entirely made up of Irish votes, hardly rep- 
resented the wishes of the British people, defeated the bill by 
a large majority.* 

377. Elections of 1895. — This act of the peers aroused 
against them the animosity of the Liberals. Gladstone, Labou- 
chere, and others denounced the House of Lords, and carried 
on a veritable campaign for its abolition. Gladstone resigned 
in March, 1894; and, to the great dissatisfaction of Radicals 
like Labouchere, who did not want a leader from the House of 
Lords, Lord Rosebery became the acknowledged head of the 
Liberal party. But Rosebery's tenure was brief. Defeated on 
a small matter in June, 1895, he resigned; and at once his 
successor. Lord Salisbury, dissolved parliament and appealed 
to the country. The elections of 1895 were full of interest. 
The Liberals were disheartened. During their three years of 
power, they had not only accomplished very little, but they 
had failed to deal effectively with any of the great social prob- 
lems. They had wasted time on the home rule question, and 
had got from it no adequate return. The great promises of 
their earlier programmes had not been fulfilled. At the polls 
they suffered heavy defeat, and the Conservatives obtained a 
majority greater than at any other time in their history. Even 
without the Liberal Unionists, who, since 1886, had been their 
ardent allies, they would have had full control of the House of 
Commons. 

1 Kendall, No. 133. 



1895-1900] DISRUPTION OF THE LIBERAL PARTY. 537 

378. Disruption of the Liberal Party. — The new ministry 
was made up of Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, and 
remained firmly intrenched in office for five years. The Lib- 
erals gradually underwent disruption. The withdrawal of the 
Liberal Unionists had deprived them of some of their ablest 
members. Gladstone had retired, leaving them without a 
leader in whom all had faith, and they formed a disunited 
party, without fixed and definite policy, and without harmony 
among themselves. Their Irish allies, who had divided into 
hostile groups after the death of Parnell, were estranged 
because of the failure of the home rule policy, and were angry 
when the Liberals refused to place home rule any longer in the 
front of their programme. During the years between 1895 and 
the general elections of 1900, one Liberal leader after another 
came to the front. Kosebery resigned in 1896 ; Sir William 
Harcourt took his place, but in 1898 withdrew from the leader- 
ship of a party that was "rent by sectional disputes and personal 
interests.'' Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman became Harcourt's 
successor ; but before 1900 the party itself seemed completely 
demoralized. A group of Liberal Imperialists, supporters of 
the imperial policy of the Conservatives, and led by Sir E. 
Grey and Lord Brassey, broke away from the party and formed 
a separate group by themselves. This left the Little England- 
ers, that is, those who opposed the enlargement of the empire 
by the acquirement of new territory, in full control.* The 
Conservative party never seemed stronger or more united, and 
never better able to carry out its policy with efficiency and 
despatch than in the year 1900. 

379. Social and Industrial Tendencies. — The Conservative 
government, maintaining the traditions of its predecessors, 
gave its attention to the demands of the industrial and agricul- 
tural classes, and tried to bring about social reform. It dealt 
with the matter of factories, and endeavored to bring more 



1 John Morley was one of the best-known Little Englanders. See hia 
"Warning," in Kendall, No. 150. 



538 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1885 

industries under the operation of the law. It concerned itself 
with hours of labor, but was unsuccessful in carrying an 
eight-hour law for miners. It passed a bill providing for com- 
pensation for accidents, which increased the workingman's 
opportunity of enforcing claims against employers ; it tried to 
check disease among cattle and swine, to prevent adulteration 
of drugs and food, to prevent explosions in mines, and to 
enable occupiers of small dwellings to purchase their homes. 
It supplemented the land purchase acts for Ireland, and 
created a department of agriculture for that country; and, in 
some ways, its most important work was its attempt to create 
a uniform school system. It extended the government's 
ownership of telegraphs and telephones ; and, in other ways, 
increased the government's control of public conveniences. 
It must not be supposed that these legislative activities were 
coniined to the Conservatives only. All governments since 
1868 had been regulating private activities and extending the 
authority of the state in matters relating to the welfare of the 
masses. 

380. Position of Great Britain Abroad. — Of great importance 
and interest was the position of Great Britain abroad. Since 
1885, other European countries, notably Germany and France, 
had been increasing their commerce and adding to their 
colonies. They had extended their trade and sought new 
markets for the commodities they had to sell. Wherever there 
were opportunities for a market, a sphere of influence, or an 
addition of territory, there such powers as Great Britain, 
Germany, France, and Eussia were disputing, generally peace- 
fully, for possession. 

By 1900, Germany had colonies in eastern Africa, western 
Africa, and the islands of the Pacific, had a port in China, and 
had obtained considerable influence in Asia Minor and Pales- 
tine. France had i:)Ossessions in northern and western Africa, 
in Tonquin, Annam, and Cambodia, had a port in China, and 
was seeking for openings in the Ked Sea and Persian Gulf. 
Russia had carried her great Siberian railway to the Pacific, 



1902J POSITION OF GREAT BRITAIN ABROAD. 53ft 

was pressing against China from the north and controlling 
Manchuria, was pushing forward by way of Transcaspia to 
the frontier of India, was extending her influence in Persia, 
and was cooperating with France at Muscat and in Somaliland. 
Germany, Austria, and Italy were united in a triple alliance, 
and France and Eussia in a dual alliance, for mutual support 
and the preservation of peace. Great Britain stood alone, the 
rival of all, yet on peaceful terms with all. 

Diplomacy underwent a change. Foreign relations were no 
longer limited to the European continent. After 1885, foreign 
ministers were interested, not only in questions concerning 
dynasties and treaties, but in colonial boundaries, spheres 
of influence, rights of possession, trade routes and markets, 
tariffs and tariff treaties. In the great majority of cases, nego- 
tiation, agreement, arbitration, and compromise were substi- 
tuted for wars. In many important crises the powers acted 
together in common accord, in order to promote peace and 
to avoid war. 

Beginning with the Berlin conference of 1885, the European 
powers were able to complete the partition of Africa in fourteen 
years, without war. Though some of the powers, notably Great 
Britain and France, became involved in disputes that seemed 
to threaten war, such as the Niger difficulty in 1898, and the 
Fashoda affair in 1896-1898, yet common sense in the end pre- 
vailed, and the troubles were settled peacefully. In 1895 a 
controversy arose between Great Britain and the United States 
over the question of the boundary between British Guiana and 
Venezuela. For the moment the matter looked serious; but 
Lord Salisbury, aware that the territory was not worth fight- 
ing for, consented to submit the matter to arbitration. In 
October, 1899, a decision was rendered by a board sitting at 
Paris, and Great Britain received nearly all she had claimed. 
Great Britain, Germany, and the United States referred a dis- 
pute regarding the Samoan Islands to King Oscar of Sweden, 
who, in 1902, rendered a decision which all received without 
demurring. 



540 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1898 

In 1898 a conference was summoned at The Hague to discuss 
plans for the preservation of peace and the reduction of arma- 
ments of war. It accomplished little in those particulars ; but 
it established a tribunal of arbitration for all civilized countries. 
This tribunal had its first case in 1902, when it was called 
upon to settle a dispute between Mexico and the United States ; 
and its second case in 190.3, when Great Britain, Germany, and 
Venezuela agreed to put into its hands a serious difficulty 
regarding Venezuela's indebtedness to the first two powers. 

In 1900, when a Boxer uprising in China roused the atten- 
tion of the civilized world, the powers, with a harmony rarely 
exhibited before, suppressed the murderous revolt; and in the 
conference that followed, from August, 1900, to September, 
1901, settled amicably the intricate and difficult questions 
involved. Though Great Britain and Kussia came into diplo- 
matic conflict over many questions, nevertheless all difficulties 
were overcome with no more serious consequences than delay. 
To special commissions were left certain complicated questions 
concerning tariff duties on imports into China, and the revision 
of the trade treaties. The success of the European concert 
in China closed a noteworthy period of seventeen years of 
diplomacy, during which scores of difficult questions were 
settled peacefully that in older days might easily have led to 
war. 

381. Great Britain's Dominions beyond the Seas: Egypt. — 
The attempt of the Continental powers to obtain markets 
aroused Great Britain to a new interest in her colonies, and to 
new activities in various parts of her great empire. 

In Egypt the recovery of the Sudan was begun in 1896, when 
the sirdar, General Kitchener,^ advanced into Dongola and 
gradually pushed southward toward Khartum. On April 8, 
1898, was fought the battle of the Atbara ; on September 2, 
that of Omdurman. By these two British victories the power 
of the dervishes was broken and the Sudan restored to Egypt. 

1 Kendall. No. 148. 



1899] AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION — THE BOER WAR. 541 

On January 5, 1899, was laid the corner-stone of the Gordon 
Memorial College at Khartum ; and a few weeks afterward a 
convention was signed with Egypt, giving Great Britain con- 
trol in the equatorial region south of the 22° of north latitude. 
In March the boundary between the French and British spheres 
was defined, and the last cause of difficulty of that kind seemed 
to be removed. Great Britain had long ago promised to with- 
draw from Egypt, but had stayed, despite the protests of 
France and Turkey. Though breaking her pledged word, she 
has without doubt contributed to the material and moral im- 
provement of the people who inhabit the valley and delta of the 
Nile. 

382. Australian Federation. — In Australia a movement look- 
ing to the federation of the colonies of that island continent 
had been begun as early as 1883. For eighteen years the 
matter was considered, and the efforts of those interested were 
continued. But union was difficult to effect. Finally, in 1899, 
a federal constitution was adopted by all the colonies of 
Australasia, except New Zealand, and in June, 1900, this con- 
stitution was accepted by the British House of Commons. 
Thus was created the Federal Commonwealth of Australia, 
under the crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
Ireland. With the opening of the first federal parliament at 
Melbourne, in May, 1901, a new era in the history of this part 
of the British world began. 

383. The Boer War. — Equally noteworthy was the rapid 
advance of the British in South Africa. Since the founding 
of the German colonies by Bismarck in 1884, and the discovery 
of gold in the Transvaal in 1886, British interest in the in- 
terior lands of Africa had vastly increased. During the years 
that followed, to 1895, British colonists had pushed northward 
through Bechuanaland into the land afterward called Rhodesia. 
By 1896, British territory in South Africa comprised Cape 
Colony, Rhodesia, British Central Africa or Northern Rho- 
desia, and Nyassaland. Telegraph lines were carried through 
the new territory, and a railroad, which in 1898 was extended 



542 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1902 

to Salisbury, was planned to connect in Uganda with the 
Egyptian road already built as far south as Khartum. This 
rapid advance of the British cut off the Boer states from 
the interior ; and, in consequence of a special arrangement 
made by Great Britain with Portugal, who possessed Mozam- 
bique, they were cut off also from the ocean. 

By the treaty of 1884 (§ 373), the British suzerainty over 
the Boers had been restricted to foreign relations, and not very 
strictly observed even at that. But the discovery of gold 
brought so many immigrants into the Transvaal, tlmt Johan- 
nesburg became a city, not of Boers, but of foreigners. Discon- 
tent soon arose, owing to the narrow policy of the Boers, and 
the foreign residents in the Transvaal found it impossible to 
obtain a redress of grievances by peaceful means. Therefore, 
in 1895, a conspiracy was formed for the overthrow of the 
Boer government. Dr. Jameson, of the British chartered 
company, with a band of followers, invaded the Transvaal, 
but was surrounded and captured, December 25, 1895. This 
unfortunate attempt greatly injured the cause of the for- 
eigners, and threw power into the hands of the reactionary 
party of the Boers, whose leader was President Kruger. From 
1896 to 1899, relations between Great Britain and the Trans- 
vaal became more and more strained, until finally, in October, 

1899, Kruger issued an ultimatum, which brought on war. 
The Boer war lasted from October, 1899, to the summer of 

1902. The British were at first repulsed, and, in the battles 
of Stormberg (December 10), Magersfontein (December 11), 
and Colenso (December 15) were badly defeated. In January, 

1900, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener took the command; 
and, during that year, notwithstanding the heroic defence of 
the Boers, occupied both republics, and proclaimed their 
annexation to Great Britain. But the Boers, under De Wet, 
Botha, and Delarey, fought on, inflicting great losses, until, on 
May 31, 1902, a treaty of peace was signed and on June 16 the 
last Boer company laid down its arras. The war redounded 
to the glory of the Boers, who showed themselves to be brave 




Queen Victoria. 
From a photograph taken late in life. 



[543] 



544 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1901 

men and skillful strategists. It showed Lord Kitchener to be 
not only a fighter, but a shrewd and tactful administrator. By 
the terms of peace, the Boers lost their independence, but 
received concessions that were designed to transform them 
into loyal subjects of the British empire. 

384. The Elections of 1900. — The Conservatives, notwith- 
standing the distractions of the war, were able to consider 
many important legislative measures. In 1900 they deter- 
mined to dissolve parliament and try their strength with the 
country. The electoral campaign was contested largely on 
the war issue, since the Liberals were without definite pro- 
gram, and could do little more than stand on their own plat- 
form of peace, retrenchment, and reform. The Conservatives 
came out victorious, with a majority of one hundred and thirty- 
four ; while the party favoring the Boers was overwhelmingly 
defeated. The Liberals and Irish Nationalists made strenuous 
efforts to reorganize their parties, but without success. 

385. Death of Queen Victoria. — In January, 1901, alarming 
reports began to be circulated regarding the health of the 
queen ; and on January 22, she died at the advanced age of 
eighty-two years. Never had the death of a monarch aroused 
such sincere and widespread grief. She had reigned nearly 
sixty-four years, a very long period, during which she had seen 
greater changes in the conditions of human existence than had 
any sovereign who had preceded her. Between 1837 and 1901, 
the material, political, and social life, not only of England, but 
of Europe as a whole, had undergone a great transformation. 
During these years, Victoria had won not only the love and 
devotion of her subjects, the respect and veneration of the 
outside world for her nobility of life and character, but also 
the admiration of statesmen for her sanity of judgment and 
inflexible honorableness of conduct in politics and diplomacy. 
Said Lord Salisbury : '' She has bridged over that great interval 
which separates old England from new England. Other 
nations may have had to pass through similar trials, but have 



1901] THE VICTORIAN ERA. 545 

seldom passed through them so peaceably, so easily, and with 
so much prosperity and success as we have. I think that 
future historians will look to the queen's reign as the boundary 
which separates the two states of England, and will recognize 
that we have undergone the change, with constant increase of 
public prosperity, without any friction to endanger the stability 
of our civil life ; and, at the same time, with a constant ex- 
pansion of an empire which every year grows more and more 
powerful." 

386. The Victorian Era. — The story of Queen Victoria's 
reign is the story of the greater part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury and of the wonderful changes which were effected during 
that century in the life and organization of the people of the 
civilized world. During the queen's reign the British Empire 
was established and British interests were extended to the 
uttermost parts of the earth. Population in the British Isles 
doubled and in many of the colonies it increased twenty-five 
times. Wealth more than trebled and trade grew to six times 
its former volume. In 1900 it could he said that "one square 
mile in every four in the world was under the British flag, and 
at least one person out of every five persons alive was a subject 
of the queen." 

More noteworthy even than the increase in size and popu- 
lation were the changes made in Great Britain itself in the ad- 
ministration of government, central and local, the dispensing 
of justice, and the improvement of the social conditions of 
the people as a whole. From 1832 to 1901 there was scarcely 
a phase of the older system that was not either reformed or 
transformed. The right to vote was so greatly extended by 
the reform acts of 1867 and 1884 that Great Britain became 
for the first time a country with what we may begin to call a 
democratic form of government. 

Great improvements were made in the management of the 
finances, the navy, the army (both the regular troops and the 
militia), in the organization of the law courts, and in the exer- 



546 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [l837 

cise of justice. Education, health, the poor, the factory sys- 
tem, the police, the postal service, and other features of the 
nation's life were altered for the better. 

' Perhaps the greatest single reform was the taking out of the 
hands of the propertied and privileged classes, that is, the no- 
bility and local gentry, the control of administration and justice. 
Voting became free, representation in the House of Commons 
was fairly distributed, the great offices of state were held 
as often by commoners as by peers, local affairs were controlled 
by officials locally elected, law was administered by trained 
lawyers, positions in the army and navy no longer went by 
favor but were based on ability and merit, and education began 
to pass out of the hands of the religious bodies. 

In material conditions immense progress was made. In- 
dustry and invention were mainly responsible for the improve- 
ments in production and transportation. The first railways' 
were opened and the first steamships built during the preceding 
reigns, but it was not until the Victorian era was well under way 
that they became important factors in the social and economic 
life of the nation. Before 1837 Edinburgh was more remote 
from London than New York is to-day ; a trip to Australia or 
India was a matter of months. Until the introduction of the 
telegraph or telephone news was slow to arrive, and information 
could be sent no faster than individuals could travel. Rail- 
ways, steamships, telegraphs, cables, and telephones all came 
into use during Queen Victoria's reign. 

The same period witnessed the introduction first of wax 
candles, then of gas lighting, and finally of the electric arc 
light ; it saw the invention of the daguerreotype photograph, 
and the beginning of the moving picture and color photography ; 
it was the time when the first experiments were made with the 
gasoline engine, the automobile, the phonograph, the electric 
railway, wireless telegraphy, the Rontgen rays and radium. 
All these things, as well as the typewriter, the type-setting 
machine, and the use of structural steel in building are of com- 



1862] THE VICTORIAN ERA. 547 

paratively recent date. The Victorian era was the golden age 
of science, an age distinguished by a galaxy of men renowned 
in the spheres of physics, chemistry, medicine, and surgery. 

The effects of all these astounding inventions and discoveries 
in the fields of the physical and the biological sciences were very 
far-reaching. The development of steam navigation and the 
great improvements made in the mechanical uses of steam and 
electricity led to a great increase in the number and size of 
merchant vessels and the consequent extension of trade. 

The rapid growth of the steel industry, the manufacture of 
armor plate, the invention of quick-firing guns and of machine 
guns, and the introduction of scores of labor-saving devices 
transformed the building and running of warships and made 
possible the modern navy. With the changes in the construction 
of merchant ships and men-of-war went great improvements in 
matters of navigation and of the discipline and training of sea- 
men. Life on board ship became more humane and comfortable, 
flogging in the navy was abolished, and drinking was greatly 
diminished. 

In industry, mechanical invention lowered the cost of pro- 
duction and increased a hundred fold the variety of articles 
manufactured. Though the factory system had injurious effects 
upon the employees and gave rise to serious problems in the 
relations between capital and labor, efforts to improve the 
conditions of the laboring classes were to a large extent success- 
ful. Questions of hours of labor, housing of workmen, safety 
appliances, wages, pensions, and the like were met and in part 
answered, and attempts to provide technical education for the 
laboring classes were in a measure successful. 

When in the decade from 1852 to 1862 trade began to expand 
rapidly, owing in part to the repeal of the corn laws, and in part 
to improved facilities for transportation and the new supply 
of gold from California and Australia, workmen in the cities 
profited because of a scarcity of labor and gained greatly in 
political importance. The trade unions entered on a forty-year 



548 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [l872 

period of efficiency and were able to make themselves a power 
in politics and legislation. The first outstanding result of this 
change in the position of the city laborer was the passage of the 
reform act of 1867, which gave the right to vote to the working 
classes in the towns and introduced for the first time something 
like democracy into the government of England. 

Agriculture, which had made considerable progress in the 
eighteenth century, advanced less than did manufactures during 
the Victorian era. As rapid transportation brought the farmers 
of England into severe competition with other countries, 
notably Germany and America, agriculture became less profit- 
able, a period of depression set in, and people began to migrate 
from the country to the cities. Though improvements in 
farming methods continued to be made, the amount of land 
under cultivation decreased, and efforts to bring new areas into 
cultivation practically came to an end. 

But with the passage of the reform bill of 1884, by which agri- 
culturists and miners obtained the right to vote, a heavier 
pressure was brought to bear upon parliament to consider the 
needs of the farmer and the rural laborer and to pass new and 
helpful legislation. Consequently both in England and Ireland 
efforts were made to reestablish the small agriculturist on the 
soil, if not as an owner, at least as a tenant, secure and fixed 
in his tenure. 

The political monopoly of the aristocratic and capitalist 
classes, which had been broken by the reform acts of 1867 and 
1884, was rendered powerless by other important measures. 
Corruption at the polls was checked by the bribery acts of 1841 
and 1852 and eliminated altogether by the very drastic act of 
1883, which made illegal all forms of improper influence at 
elections, disqualifying every candidate who gained his seat 
by the use of money or any other unfair means of controlling 
the vote of an elector. 

The casting of a ballot was for the first time rendered secret 
by the ballot act of 1872. In local affairs the old-time country 



1875] THE VICTORIAN ERA. 549 

squires were deprived of their administrative and judicial powers 
by the local government acts of 1888 and 1894, and thus one 
of the most picturesque of historical personages, the justice of 
the peace, ceased to exist. The office of justice, though unpaid, 
was dignified and influential and was wont to be the goal of 
many an Englishman's ambition as a comfortable post for his 
declining years. 

In the higher courts, where judges had not infrequently been 
selected because of family standing, or political service, the 
judicature act of 1875 made legal training and talent the 
qualifications for appointment and promotion, while in the 
army the abolition of paid commissions in 1870 rendered it 
possible for any man to rise to the highest military post without 
regard to wealth or influence. Thus in many ways England 
was becoming a land of equal opportunity for all, and brains 
and energy were counting for more than caste or privilege. 

During the early part of the nineteenth century the attitude 
of the government toward industry and agriculture was to let 
men alone to run their business as they saw fit and not to 
interfere. But this policy led to so much abuse and unjust 
treatment of factory employees, workers in mines, and agri- 
cultural laborers that about the middle of the century the 
government began, in the face of great opposition, to extend its 
control. At first this interference took the form of factory 
legislation regarding hours of labor, the employment of women 
and children, the condition of the buildings, and the health of 
the workers. 

Legislation for mines followed, and gradually one interest 
after another was taken up. Toward the end of the century 
efforts were made to increase the number of small farmers by 
allowing the use of small allotments of untilled land for poor 
families. This system of allotments, or small holdings for the 
landless poor, proved very successful. Similar interest by the 
government in the welfare of the working classes was seen in 
laws requiring towns to remedy conditions unfavorable to 



550 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1903 



health, providing for better dweUings for the poor, and estab- 
lishing in every post office — itself under government control 
— savings banks for people of small means. By the end of 
the century the earlier policy was completely reversed, and the 
government was taking a very active part in controlling and 
regulating industry and labor. 

387. Edward VII. — Queen Victoria was succeeded by her 
eldest son, the Prince of Wales, who ascended the throne as 

Edward VII. In his 
coronation oath, he 
expressed his full de- 
termination to rule 
" as a constitutional 
sovereign in the 
strictest sense of the 
word " ; and '* to 
work," he said, " as 
long as there is breath 
in my body, for the 
good and amelioration 
of my people." On 
August 9, 1902, he 
was crowned King of 
Great Britain and Ire- 
land. Emperor of 
India, and Sovereign 
of the Dominions be- 
yond the Seas. On 
January 1, 1903, at a 
durbar held in Delhi, 
he was formally pro- 
claimed Emperor of India. He proved a strong and able ruler, 
popular with all classes of Englishmen and highly respected 
throughout the world for his efforts in behalf of peace and the 
establishing of friendly relations between England and the 




Edward VII. 
From a photograph. 



1906] FOREIGN RELATIONS. 551 

other powers of Europe. He spent on an average three 
months of every year of his reign outside of his dominions, for 
the most part incognito but sometimes as king, in order to 
recruit his health and to visit foreign rulers with greetings of 
courtesy and good-will. His journeyings had no diplomatic 
or political mission but were prompted by a natural love of 
travel and by a desire to see his many kinsmen and friends 
who were seated on foreign thrones. So extensive were his 
family connections that he was sometimes called the " Uncle of 
Europe." 

Though King Edward had no aptitude for diplomatic nego- 
tiation and no love of political intrigue, his urbanity and social 
tact, his fondness for entertainment and friendly conversation, 
and his whole-souled interest in the happiness of others and the 
general welfare of mankind had an appreciable effect upon 
England's foreign relations and often paved the way for im- 
portant diplomatic agreements that in the eyes of many seemed 
to be parts of a definite foreign policy. But the king never 
passed beyond his constitutional limitations or trespassed 
upon the powers of his ministers. He was called Edward the 
Peacemaker because he was able by the charm of his personality 
and his gifts of social intercourse to improve England's position 
among her neighbors and to promote peace. 

388. Foreign Relations. — The war with the Boers in South 
Africa had aroused among the people of Europe and America 
a deep feeling of bitterness and distrust toward England. But 
the terms of the treaty of peace of 1902, and still more the 
granting of responsible government to the conquered Boer 
states in 1906, did much to allay this animosity, and during 
King Edward's reign the British government entered into 
agreements with three foreign powers that were to be of the 
greatest importance. 

In January, 1902, an understanding {entente) was reached with 
Japan, according to which either power was to remain neutral 
in case the other were attacked. This understanding was 



552 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [l906 

changed to an offensive and defensive alliance in 1905, by which 
the scope of the agreement was much enlarged and each power 
bound itself to protect the other's interests in the East and to 
come to the other's assistance in case of attack by any other 
power or powers. 

On April 8, 1904, an understanding was reached with France, 
which brought to an end a long series of quarrels in various 
parts of the world. By this understanding France was to 
uphold England's rights in Egypt and England was to sup- 
port those of France in Morocco and thus between the two 
powers a position of alliance and friendship was established, 
known henceforth as the entente cordiale, and destined 
to be of momentous consequence in the future history of 
Europe. 

Three j^ears later, largely because of Germany's intrigues in 
Turkey and Persia, a similar understanding was reached with 
Russia, which settled all misunderstandings between the two 
countries relating to Thibet, Afghanistan, and Persia. If to 
these agreements be added the continuance of eminently cordial 
relations with Portugal and Italy, friendly powers of long stand- 
ing, it is possible to comprehend how different a position Eng- 
land occupied at the end of King Edward's reign from that 
which she held at the beginning. Within these nine years she 
had recovered from the ill-will created by the Boer War, and, 
emerging from her continental isolation, had become a leading 
power in European affairs. 

Only with Germany were her relations unfriendly. German 
statesmen saw in King Edward's visits and in the various 
alliances and agreements of the period a series of acts inimical 
to Germany's prestige. They believed that Great Britain was 
deliberately attempting to detach Italy from the Triple Alliance 
of Germany, Austria, and Italy, which had been formed in 
1882 ; to build up a coalition of powers, from which Germany 
was to be excluded ; and to draw around Germany a circle of 
hostile states that would act together in order to block what 



1906] 



FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



553 



Germany deemed her legitimate ambitions and to endanger her 
very existence as a world power. 




Arthur James Balfour and Joseph Choate (Mr. Balfour in the 

foreground) . 

Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. 

Their fears seemed to be justified when in 1906 at a conference 
held at Algeciras in Spain to decide regarding the respective 



554 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. 



1906 



rights of France and Germany in Morocco Great Britain 
stood by France in accordance with the terms of their agreement 
and prevented Germany from securing equal rights for all in 
Moroccan affairs. That British statesmen ever conceived of 
an " encircling policy " hostile to Germany has never been 
proved, but that most of the German people believed in the 
existence of such a policy is unquestionably true, and it became 
during the next few years a veritable article of faith with those 
in control of Germany's foreign relations. 

389. The Elections of 1906. — In December, 1905, A. J. 
Balfour, the prime minister, resigned, and was succeeded by Sir 

Henry Campbell-Banner- 
man, the liberal leader. 
Parliament was dissolved 
and a general election was 
held in January, 1906. 
The Conservative or 
Unionist party had been 
in control since 1895, first 
under Lord Salisbury until 
1 902 and then under Bal- 
four. It had carried the 
Boer War to a victorious 
conclusion and had nego- 
tiated the agreements with 
Japan and France. But 
in domestic affairs it had 
been less successful. The 
cause of its downfall was 
largely financial. Owing 
to enormously increased 
expenditures due to the prosecution of the war, land loans 
to Ireland, and an apparent decrease in the total returns 
from British trade, fears were aroused lest taxes, already 
heavy, should be increased. 




Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. 



1910] THE CORONATION OF GEORGE V. 555 

Chamberlain, a Liberal Unionist and a supporter of Balfour, 
now came out in favor of tariff reform, that is, of a protective 
tariff instead of free trade. He hoped by imposing more 
general duties on imports, particularly on food stuffs from foreign 
countries, with lower rates for the colonies, not only to enlarge 
the revenue but to encourage home industries, stimulate 
trade, and increase employment. This radical departure 
from England's established system of free trade caused 
wide dissensions in the Unionist ranks. Chamberlain resigned 
in order to stump the country in behalf of his program, 
and his resignation was followed by the retirement of many 
of the leading free traders. Balfour, who had given the 
Chamberlain plan a somewhat hesitating support, endeavored 
to hold together the disorganized party but with dwindling 
success. 

Other issues also were making the Unionists unpopular with 
the electors. The introduction of Chinese cheap labor in the 
South African mines, in order to restore them to working order 
after the war, the education bill of 1902, a conservative measure 
which the Dissenters vigorously opposed, and the failure of the 
party in power to improve the conditions of the laboring 
masses, all worked against Unionist victory. In the elections 
of 1906 they were overwhelmingly defeated. The Liberals 
secured 379 seats, the L^nionists L57, the Labor party 51, 
and the Irish Nationalists 83. The Liberals, with Campbell- 
Bannerman as their leader, now came into undisputed 
control. 

390. The Coronation of George V. The Durbar. — On 
May 6, 1910, King Edward died, to the consternation and grief 
of his people. In his short reign of nine years he had proved 
himself a wise ruler and a strong constitutional king, who left 
England stronger than he found it. He was succeeded by his 
son, the Prince of Wales, who took the title of George V, and 
with his consort. Princess Mary, was crowned at Westminster 
Abbey, June 22, 1911. Six months later they sailed for India, 



556 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. Il910 




MMMMk^k2MS:2:&MMs:kM'kMy 




King George V and Queen Mary at the Durbar, 
Delhi, India. 

where at the great coronation durhar ^ held at Delhi, amidst 

enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty and scenes of great 

splendor, they were crowned emperor and empress of India. 

1 Durbar or Darbar, in Hindustani, means a court or royal council, or a 
solemn assemblage in which the ruler gives public audience. There have 
been three great Durbars, one in 1877, one in 1903, and one in 1911, the 
last the only one presided over by the sovereign in person. 



1910] THE CORONATION OF GEORGE V. 557 

This event was noteworthy in British history. For the first 
time a king of England had set foot on the soil of India and for 
the first time a British sovereign had presided over his own 
imperial coronation. In the king-emperor's message to his 
Indian people announcement was made of the transfer of the 
seat of Indian government from Calcutta to the ancient capital, 
Delhi, a change not only geographical, that is, from the extreme 
east to the very center of the Indian Empire, but one also that 
marked the beginning of a new policy of increased self-govern- 
ment and responsibility for the Indian provinces and of greater 
independence for the native feudatory states. Before leaving 
for India King George invested the heir apparent, at Carnarvon 
Castle, July 13, 1911, with the title of Prince of Wales, a title 
that is not held of right or succession but renewed only at the 
sovereign's pleasure. The investiture was a brilliant spectacular 
display, following in all details the ancient ceremonial. 

391. Constitutional Crisis, 1910-1911. — Toward the end of 
King Edward's reign a serious constitutional difficulty arose. Of 
the two chief parties in parliament, the Liberals, who had just 
been returned to power, were composed of about one fifth 
of the House of Lords, the Liberal members of the House of 
Commons, and the Labor and Irish members, while the Unionists 
included four fifths of the House of Lords, the Conservative 
members of the House of Commons, and those former Liberals, 
called Liberal Unionists, who opposed Irish home rule. Thus 
the House of Lords, being hereditary in character, was a 
permanently conservative body, not subject to change at the 
will of the electors. When the Liberals were in power, trouble 
was bound to arise, because the Lords were sure to vote down 
some of their most important measures, as was the case with 
the Irish Home Rule Bill in 1893. But when the conservatives 
were in control, no such trouble was likely to ensue, for the Lords 
naturally supported the Conservative program in all its parts. 
Therefore the Liberals declared that the House of Lords was a 
partisan body which did not respond to the wishes of the electo- 



558 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1910 

rate and ought to be ended or mended. This cry was first raised 
in 1893, when Gladstone denounced the House of Lords as an 
irresponsible, obstructionist group, to whom the House of 
Commons should not give way, even though its members 
bore high-sounding titles and sat in a gilded chamber. But 
nothing was done at the time, as Gladstone resigned and in 1895 
the Liberals fell from power. 

But in the period of Liberal control after 1906 the issue 
was revived under more favorable conditions. In 1906 and in 
1908 the House of Lords rejected three favorite Liberal meas- 
ures — a bill abolishing plural voting at elections, a new education 
bill, and a licensing bill — and in so doing opened once more the 
conflict between the two houses. A year was spent in efforts 
to agree on a plan whereby the upper house might be reformed, 
but before any conclusion could be reached the matter was 
brought to a head by the attempt of the Liberals to meet the 
financial question which had in large part been responsible for 
their victory at the polls. In 1909 David Lloyd George, 
chancellor of the exchequer, introduced a budget, which was 
the Liberal substitute for Chamberlain's tariff reform. This 
budget increased the tax on incomes and inheritances, revived 
the old tax on land, and imposed a new tax on increased land 
values. These taxes fell most heavily on the great land- 
holders and though the measure was passed by the House of 
Commons it was thrown out by the House of Lords, in order to 
compel parliament to dissolve and to place the issue squarely 
before the electors at a general election. 

The Liberal party, declaring that the upper house had no 
right whatever to force a dissolution and that its right to reject 
a budget was already obsolete, accepted the appeal to the 
electors. The issues influencing the election, which was held 
in January, 1910, were many and confusing. On one side were 
the Liberals supporting the budget and urging the mending of 
the House of Lords, the Irish Nationalists wishing home rule, 
the Labor members advocating extensions of the suffrage and 



1911] CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS, 1910-1911. 559 

new labor legislation, and the Dissenters upholding the edu- 
cation bill ; on the other were the Unionists opposing the budget 
and any serious curtailment of the powers of the upper house, 
and standing for tariff reform, union with Ireland, a large 
navy, and an imperial policy, the Anglicans and Roman 
Catholics opposing the education bill, and the liquor interests 
opposing the licensing bill. 

So many conflicting influences clouded the main issues, the 
budget and the House of Lords, and resulted in an election 
that was very disappointing to the Liberals. The latter 
obtained but two seats more than the Unionists, 275 to 273, 
while the Irish Nationalists had 82 members and the Laborites 
40. But with the aid of the Irish votes the Liberals again 
passed the budget and this time the Lords accepted it and it 
became law. True to their program the Liberal leaders, with 
Asquith as prime minister, took up the issue of the upper house, 
determined to take away from that body in the future all power 
to reject a money bill or to reject any bill that the House of 
Commons persisted in passing. 

The death of King Edward in May, 1910, postponed the con- 
flict, and further attempts were made to reach a compromise. 
Then the Liberal cabinet decided to dissolve parliament, and 
obtained from George V the promise that if the new elections 
were favorable and the House of Lords still refused to agree to a 
curtailment of their powers, he would create a sufficient number 
of new peers to overcome their opposition. 

The elections were held in December, 1910, and the returns 
gave the Liberals and Unionists exactly the same number of 
seats, 272. But with the Irish and Labor votes Asquith could 
command a majority in parliament of 126, an increase of but 
two over the last election. Though the Unionists declared 
that this majority, made up in largest part of Irish votes, was 
no true indication of the wishes of the British electorate, the 
Liberals, thinking otherwise, went ahead with their program. 

On May 15, 1911, the new measure introduced by the Liberal 



560 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1911 




The Stream of Parliamentary Majorities, 1832-1910. 
Adapted from the London Graphic. 



-1 



1911] A WAVE OF REFORM MEASURES. 561 

government was passed by the House of Commons and imme- 
diately sent up to the House of Lords. What would the peers 
do? Would they accept the bill curtailing their legislative 
powers or would they reject or amend it? Intense excitement 
reigned throughout the country. Wide differences of opinion 
existed as to the wisest policy to pursue, and a small number of 
Unionist peers, known as the * Die Hards,' wished to fight 
to the last ditch for the defeat of the bill. 

But saner councils prevailed. Thirty-seven Unionist peers, 
opposed to the bill, but wishing to prevent the creation of 500 
' mushroom ' members of the House of Lords, voted with the 
Liberals and the bill was carried on August 10, by a majority 
of 17. It received the royal assent eight days later. By this 
law, officially known as the Parliament Act, the House of Lords 
was deprived of all power to amend or reject a money bill 
passed by the House of Commons, and in case it rejected any 
other bill, the House of Commons by passing the bill in three 
successive sessions, whether of the same parliament or not, 
could send it to the king for his assent, without regard to the 
attitude of the upper house. As the king never refused his 
assent to a bill passed by parliament, this meant that the House 
of Commons had become in fact the sole law-making body of 
the kingdom. Thus was effected the most important change 
in the parliamentary system of England that had taken place 
since 1832. 

392. A Wave of Reform Measures. — The Liberal party, 
dependent as it was for its majority in parliament upon the 
votes of the Irish and Labor members, was bound to place the 
latter's demands at the very forefront of its legislative pro- 
gram. These demands included Irish home rule, a more direct 
representation of labor in the House of Commons, and laws 
promoting the general welfare of the laboring masses. Along 
with these went a widespread agitation for an extension of 
the suffrage, the granting to women of the right to vote for 
members of parliament, the abolition of plural voting, and such 



562 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1911 



a redistribution of seats as would meet the shifting of population 
which had been going on since 1885, when the last distribution of 
seats had taken place. 

So unrepresentative was the existing system that members in 
parliament were sitting for constituencies ranging from 55,951 
(Rumford) to 2,648 (Durham) in England, 24,617 (Lanark) 

to 3,037 (Wick) in Scot- 
land, 17,176 (Belfast) to 
1,690 (Kilkenny) in Ire- 
land, and 28,932 (Cardiff) 
to 3,453 (Montgomery) in 
Wales, while according to 
total population England 
should have had 47 more 
members, Wales one more, 
Scotland 4 less, and Ire- 
land 44 less. This was 
an unfair situation and 
should be remedied. 

With Asquith, prime 
minister, Lloyd George, 
chancellor of the ex- 
chequer. Sir Edward Grey, 
foreign secretary, and R. 
McKenna, home secre- 
tary, the Liberal ministry 
went ahead with its program, certain at last that the House of 
Lords could not interfere to block its plans. On the very day 
of the passage of the Parliament Act by the House of Lords 
a resolution was adopted by the House of Commons, authoriz- 
ing the payment of £400 ($2000) a year to each member of the 
house, thus enabling men of moderate means or of no means 
at all to stand for election, knowing that if elected they would 
receive payment for their services. Hitherto the expenses of 
labor members had been met by the labor organizations. This 




Herbert Henry Asquith. 



1914] A WAVE OF REFORM MEASURES. 563 

was but preliminary to a greater measure to come. In 1912 a 
Franchise Electoral Reform Bill was introduced, granting the 
vote to every adult male who had resided in his district for six 
months. 

No sooner were the terms known to the world outside par- 
liament and it was seen that woman's suffrage was left out of 
the bill than an agitation was begun by the militant suffragettes 
of the most violent character. Property was attacked and 
destroyed, buildings were set on fire, and the ministry was 
harassed in £very way known to woman's fertile mind. Though 
parliament had been favorable to the principle of woman's 
voting, the cabinet had been divided, and Asquith had regularly 
refused to bring in a special bill for the purpose, but now he 
agreed to accept an amendment to the Reform Bill. When, 
however, the speaker of the House ruled that such an amendment 
so altered the character of the bill as to require that it be in- 
troduced over again the government abandoned the measure. 
For a time the militant suffragettes continued their attacks, 
but with the outbreak of the war in 1914, they temporarily 
buried the hatchet, and loyally labored in behalf of their coun- 
try. 

In the meantime the government had been going ahead with 
its plans. It had already adopted in 1908 and 1911 a system of 
pensions payable to every man and woman over the age of 
seventy, possessing a yearly income of less than $150 a year. 
The number thus benefited soon exceeded a million persons at a 
cost to the country of more than $50,000,000. On September 
14, 1914, after long discussion, it finally passed the bill for the 
disestablishment of the English Church in Wales. 

More important still, on the same day a new Irish Home Rule 
Bill, after having been twice rejected by the House of Lords, was 
passed for the third time by the House of Commons and with 
the king's assent became a law. This act provided for a single 
Irish parliament, though leaving the six counties of Ulster 
outside for six years, at the end of which time they were to 



564 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [l914 

become subordinate to the parliament. But, owing to the war, 
its operation was suspended and eventually it was replaced by a 
new Home Rule Bill in 1920. 

393. The Situation in Ireland. The Easter Rebellion. — 
After a century of agitation and two attempts by the Liberal 

party to meet the wishes 
of the Irish Nationalists, 
a grant of home rule had 
been definitely conceded to 
Ireland. The new meas- 
ure gave to that country 
not responsible gov- 
ernment but self-govern- 
ment within the Empire, 
somewhat similar to the 
self-government already 
possessed by twenty-eight 
other parts of the British 
world, and it satisfied the 
Irish national party, of 
which John Redmond was 
the leader. " I say to the 
government," said Red- 
mond, in a grateful ex- 
pression of thanks for the 
Home Rule Bill, " that they may to-morrow withdraw every 
one of their troops from Ireland. I say that the coast of Ire- 
land will be defended from foreign invasion by her armed sons, 
and for this purpose armed Nationalist Catholics in the south 
will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant 
Ulstermen in the north." ^ 




John Edward Redmond. 



1 Redmond's words found fulfilment when on Flanders field united Irish 
divisions — the sixteenth (Irish) and the thirty-sixth (Ulster) — marched 
side by side to victory at Wytschaete ridge, June 7-10, 1917. By an irony 
of tragedy, Redmond's younger brother, Major William Redmond, met his 



1914] THE EASTER REBELLION. 565 

But Redmond had reckoned without adequate appreciation 
of two powerful forces in Ireland itself that were destined to 
wreck the cause of home rule, — a cause for which he had labored 
so long. The first was the Protestant population of Ulster 
county in the north, which outnumbered the Roman Catholics 
of Ulster by a third and largely controlled the industries and 
manufactures of the province, and the other the radical 
Irish element, hardly known outside of Ireland before the war 
began, divided into parties, which though differing among 
themselves had one common aim — complete separation from 
the Empire. Of these radical groups, the Sinn Feiners ^ 
were the most conspicuous, and in popular comment their 
name was given to the whole radical or independent 
movement. 

Thus there were in Ireland three irreconcilable points of view : 
that of the Irish Nationalists who supported home rule; that 
of the Ulsterites who, convinced that under home rule their 
religion would be destroyed and their industries ruined, wished 
to remain as they were; and that of the Sinn Feiners and 
other extremists who wanted an independent Irish republic. 
For the moment the Irish Nationalists, with more than 
eighty members in the House of Commons, had won in the 
passage of the Home Rule Bill, but hardly had the bill been 
introduced in 1912 when Ulster, led by Sir Edward Carson, 
began a revolt which lasted until the outbreak of the war. 
A covenant was signed pledging its supporters to oppose home 
rule, volunteers were enrolled and drilling took place, and as 
the Irish Nationalists claimed the same right and began to 
arm also, it looked for the moment as if civil war might break 
out at any time. But the menace of the European situation 

death in this battle at the head of his troops. Redmond himself, em- 
bittered and broken-hearted because of the failure of the cause for which 
he had labored so long, died the following March at the age of 67. Al- 
together nearly 50,000 Irishmen born were killed in the war. 

1 Pronounced Shin Faners. Sinn Fein means "Ourselves," that is to say, 
"Ireland for the Irish." 



566 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [l918 

sobered the Ulsterites and the suspension of the Home Rule 
Act brought the danger to an end. 

For a year the Irish question was completely overshadowed 
and almost forgotten. Nationalists and Ulsterites offered 
themselves for war service, though in relatively small numbers, 
and Ireland appeared to be peaceful. But a new power was 
already at work, which had as its motto the freedom of Ireland. 
Already the Gaelic League was attempting to revive the old 
Gaelic language and literature ; the Irish Revolutionary 
Brotherhood was winning converts to a policy of force in order 
to gain independence ; and Sinn Fein, some of whose members 
were pacifists and some believers in violence, was passing out of 
the stage of idealism and becoming an active political power 
working for the complete overthrow of British rule in Ireland. 
These Irish radicals opposed recruiting, expressed openly their 
sympathy for the German cause, and began to arm in the hope 
of lending their aid, should occasion arise, to the enemies of 
Great Britain. 

The movement culminated in two bloody events. On 
April 21, 1916, Sir Roger Casement was caught landing on the 
coast of Ireland from a disguised German cruiser and in August 
was hanged for treason; and at the same time (April 24- 
May 3, 1916) a radical revolt was begun in Dublin and soon 
assumed the form of an armed insurrection. The post office 
and other buildings were seized and an Irish Republic pro- 
claimed. But after hard fighting and the proclamation of 
martial law, the rebellion was suppressed, and fifteen of the 
leaders executed, among them the president of the ' Republic,' 
Padraic Pearse. 

394. The Reform BiU of 1918. — Though the outbreak of 
the war seemed for the moment to postpone indefinitely all 
prospect of electoral reform, the result as it turned out was 
exactly the opposite. The magnificent response which the men 
of Great Britain made to the call for volunteers, the life in the 
training camps and the trenches in France, and the democratic 



1918] THE REFORM BILL OF 1918. 567 

spirit aroused by the vast number of men in the service ended 
all controversy upon the subject and met all objections to the 
extension of the suffrage to every adult male in the British 
Isles. 

More remarkable still was the change effected by the war in 
the position of women. Their noble response to every demand 
made upon them, their work in the munition factories, the hos- 
pitals, and the field, their exhibition of willingness to bear every 
burden, no matter how heavy or disagreeable, and their ability 
to perform tasks commonly deemed within the power of men 
only led to a great revulsion of feeling in their favor. The 
refusal of the militant suffragettes to take any advantage of the 
situation aided the cause of the women, so that even Asquith 
could say, when the question was revived in 1916, " During 
the war the women of the country have rendered as effective 
service in the prosecution of the war as any other class in the 
community. If you are going to bring in a new class of electors, 
on whatever ground of state service, none of us can deny their 
claims." 

As compared with the agitation which had accompanied the 
passage of previous reform bills, that of 1918 aroused no excite- 
ment whatever. Its chief terms were decided upon in a com- 
mittee or conference of both houses, whose report was accepted 
by parliament with but few changes, and embodied in a bill 
known as the Representation of the People Bill. 

This bill became law in April, 1918. Its provisions were as 
simple as those of previous reform acts were complicated. Any 
male of the age of 21 and any female of the age of 30 (a woman 
had to be a tenant or owner, a local elector or the wife of a 
local elector), who had resided for six months in any single 
place, could vote. Thus, except for the age limit and the ex- 
clusion of women who were merely lodgers, no difference was 
made between the franchise of a man and that of a woman. 
Plural voting was not entirely abolished, as an elector could vote 
in two constituencies under certain conditions, but the fact that 



568 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1917 

elections were to be held on one day, instead of being spread 
over two weeks, as used to be the case, made dual voting very 
difficult, even with the aid of an automobile. Election expenses 
henceforth were to be met by the government not by the candi- 
date and the amount allowed to be spent was materially reduced. 
The total number of voters was increased from about 8,000,000 
to more than 21,000,000, of whom 8,479,156 were women. 
Thus for the first time in her history Great Britain was converted 
into a genuine democracy. 

In the matter of the redistribution of seats which, as we have 
seen, had become grossly unfair, far-reaching changes were 
made. To establish equality of representation one seat was 
allowed for every 70,000 of the population in Great Britain and 
every 43,000 in Ireland. The membership of the House of 
Commons was increased from 670 to 707, and of the 37 seats 
thus added England received 31, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland 
two each. Thus except in the case of Ireland, where representa- 
tion in the future will depend on the settlement of the Irish 
question, every vote is equal to every other vote. Though 
" proportional representation," that is, the representation of the 
minority, was defeated, we can say that under the new law the 
House of Commons was destined to become for the first time 
a democratic and representative body. 

395. Elections of 1918. — The Liberal ministry under As- 
quith continued in office until November, 1916, when the exi- 
gencies of war demanded the suspension of party government 
and the establishment of a coalition ministry, composed of 
Liberals and Unionists with one Labor member. This ministry 
remained in control until November, 1917, when owing to the 
hostile criticism of Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the London 
Times, and other leaders of public opinion, a further reorgani- 
zation of a drastic character took place. 

Asquith gave way to Lloyd George as prime minister, and 
instead of a large cabinet of 23 members there was instituted a 
small War Cabinet or " steering committee " of five members — 



1918] 



ELECTIONS OF 1918. 



569 



Lloyd George (Liberal), Curzon (Unionist leader of the House 
of Lords), Bonar Law (Unionist leader of the House of Com- 
mons), Milner (Unionist), Henderson (Labor, replaced later 
by Barnes), with General Smuts the South African leader, 
invited to attend. In addition to the cabinet was the ministry, 
to which nine new members were added, concerned with labor, 
shipping, munitions, air, 
national service and re- 
cruiting, blockade, pen- 
sions, reconstruction, and 
food, each of whom was 
freed from all matters of 
public policy and limited 
in his duties strictly to 
the business of administra- 
tion. Under this reorgan- 
ized government the war 
was carried to a success- 
ful conclusion. 

After the war was over, 
demands for a general 
election became insistent, 
chiefly on the ground that 
by the addition to the 
electorate of so many 
mxillions of new electors, 
men and women, the 

House of Commons had ceased to be a representative body. 
Considerable criticism was made of the Coalition government, 
particularly of its failure to deal,boldly with the tariff question 
and to put into operation the Home Rule Act, w^hich had only 
been suspended until the war was over. So general was this 
demand for a new expression of public opinion that the govern- 
ment yielded, parliament was dissolved, and new elections were 
held on December 14, 1918. 




David Lloyd George. 



570 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1918 

The results of these elections, though not unexpected, were 
remarkable for the completeness of the Coalition victory. The 
Coalition Unionists secured 328 seats and the Coalition Liberals 
133, which with the election of 11 other members favorable to the 
Coalition made a total Coalition vote of 472. The non- 
Coalition forces secured but 235, — Labor 65, Unionist 24, 
Asquith Liberals 35, Irish Unionists 25, Irish Sinn Feiners 73, 
and scattering 17. As the Sinn Feiners refused to take their 
seats, the non-Coalitionists could command but 182 votes. 

Next to the large Coalition majority, the outstanding features 
of the election were the number of Labor members elected and 
their definite refusal to support the government, the disruption 
and temporary disappearance of the Liberals as a party, and 
the success of the Sinn Feiners, who in winning so large a number 
of seats from the Irish Nationalists not only showed the effect 
of the Easter executions upon the Irish people but also the 
repudiation of home rule by the Irish electors. In the Sinn 
Fein group was a woman. Countess Markievicz, but as she 
with her fellow Sinn Feiners refused to attend, the honor of 
being the first woman member of the House of Commons fell 
to the Viscountess Astor, an American by birth, who the next 
year, at a by-election, was returned from Plymouth. 

396. New Conditions and Problems. — The first parliament 
under the Reform Act of 1918 met on February 4, 1919, and in 
the October following the War Cabinet was retired and a new 
cabinet of twenty members took its place, thus marking a return 
to former parliamentary methods. The situation had many 
peculiar aspects. The government, though largely Con- 
servative, at least from the point of view of numbers, was led 
by a prime minister, Lloyd George, who was radical and im- 
perial, and was supported by 133 Liberal members of similar 
views. The opposition, always in the past provided by the 
party possessing the largest numbers, should have been led 
by the Sinn Feiners, but as they remained away, because they 
wished to have nothing to do with the British government, 



I 



1920] THE IRISH SITUATION, 1920. 571 

it was controlled by the Labor members, who, dependent as 
they were on the trade unions and limited in their outlook by 
devotion to class needs, were unable to rise to the demands of 
a great parliamentary opposition and to present a large and 
statesmanlike policy. In 1920 the future of party govern- 
ment in England was very uncertain. 

Between the Coalitionists and the non-Coalitionists existed few 
real differences in principle and in 1919 both united on much 
needed legislation. Deficiency of workingmen's dwellings led to 
the passage of a Housing Act, the demands of elementary and 
technical education were met by a new Education Act, while the 
labor unrest, as seen in railway strikes and miners' strikes, resulted 
in the appointment of commissions to investigate these questions. 
In January, 1920, the government, ignoring the Sinn Fein 
movement, introduced a Home Rule Bill, which was in many 
ways an improvement upon the measure of 1914, except that, 
out of deference to Ulster, two parliaments, a northern and a 
southern, were provided instead of the single parliament for all 
Ireland, which had been instituted before. In addition the 
bill provided for a single national council, composed of twenty 
members from each legislature, under a president appointed by 
the crown, and a high court for appeal for the whole of Ireland. 
Very serious was the financial situation left as the aftermath of 
the war, with its increase of expenditure and decrease of revenue 
and fear of bankruptcy owing to the heavy deficit. The budget 
of 1920-1921, presented by the chancellor of the exchequer, 
Austen Chamberlain, aroused widespread criticism. It showed 
that Great Britain's national debt had risen from £65,100,000 
before the war to the enormous sum of £7,835,000,000, because 
of that event. 

397. The Irish Situation, 1920. — Since the suspension of the 
Home Rule Act of 1914, the Irish problem had grown increas- 
ingly complex. From 1916 to 1918 the movement for in- 
dependence gained enormously in strength and in the elections 
of December of the latter year the Nationalist party was swept 



572 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1920 

aside and the advocates of an independent Ireland came into 
almost complete control. By vote of seventy per cent of Ire- 
land's elected representatives a republic was established, with 
Eamon de Valera as its president, and was accepted by a great 
majority of the locally elected bodies. Thus in 1919 and 1920 
Sinn Fein was in control, setting up its own courts — the de- 
cisions of which were enforced — and exercising both executive 
and administrative functions. 

Though the British government declared that it would never 
allow the claim for an independent Ireland, the Sinn Feiners 
went ahead with their republican organization, and estab- 
lished both a ministry and a parliament (Dail Eirearm). At 
the same time, unhappily, certain elements entered upon a 
species of guerilla warfare against representatives of British 
authority, murdering, with little attempt at concealment, 
policemen, constables (Royal Irish Constabulary), soldiers, and 
government officials, burning barracks, robbing mails, looting 
schoolhouses and churches, raiding private dwellings, and 
assaulting private individuals. Great Britain on her side sent 
troops into Ireland (more than 60,000), placed the country 
under military rule, imprisoned dozens of Irish offenders, and 
suppressed a score of Irish newspapers. In 1920 parliament 
authorized coercion by passing a law and order act (Restoration 
of Order in Ireland Act, August 9), the most important part of 
which was the substitution for the civil courts of courts mar- 
tial conducted according to the procedure of the common law. 
In the same year, as stated above, Lloyd George presented his 
solution of the problem in the form of a new Home Rule Bill, 
which, if passed, was designed to take the place of the sus- 
pended Asquith Act of 1914. 

But many, both in England and Ireland, who did not like the 
Lloyd George plan and yet believed an independent Ireland 
impossible, advocated a compromise on the basis of Dominion 
Home Rule, according to which Ireland would be given the 
status of a self-governing dominion, similar to that of New- 



1920] THE IRISH SITUATION, 1920. 573 

foundland or New Zealand. Sir Horace Plunkett and even 
Asquith himself favored this solution of the problem, but Lloyd 
George and the Unionists, as well as De Valera and the Sinn 
Feiners, would have none of it. 

Next to Sinn Fein the most serious obstacle to a settlement 
of the difficulty was Ulster, which under the guidance of Sir 
Edward Carson had opposed and brought to naught the Asquith 
Act of 1914, with its single parliament, and accepted, reluc- 
tantly, the plan of two parliaments embodied in the Lloyd George 
bill of 1920. Protestant Ulstermen rejected altogether the Sinn 
Fein program, and were apparently opposed to Dominion Home 
Rule, unless that scheme should make provision for two parli- 
aments. So intense was the hostility between the Sinn Feiners 
and the Unionist LUstermen that through the summer and 
autumn of 1920, in Londonderry and Belfast, where religious 
hostility was added to the political antipathy, bloody riots 
took place, which attained at times almost the proportions of 
a civil war. 

Sinn Feiners, claiming that these outbreaks were deliberately 
fostered by British officials at Dublin and that disunion in Ire- 
land was encouraged by the British government for political 
purposes, believed that Ulster, if let alone by Lloyd George and 
Carson, would eventually join the republicans ; but others, 
equally well informed, denied vehemently that the government 
had ever interfered in Ulster except for the purpose of keeping 
the peace, and were convinced that the only solution lay in the 
Lloyd George bill of 1920. The situation seemed almost hope- 
less in the autumn of 1920, though many, certain that matters 
could not become worse and ought not to be allowed to con- 
tinue any longer as they were, believed that a compromise would 
eventually be reached. '' What the American people do not 
know," said Viscount Bryce, himself an Irishman, " is that the 
great majority of the English people desire to give Ireland the 
fullest measure of freedom within the empire. But it is in the 
divisions within Ireland herself, not in the lack of good-will on 



574 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1920 

England's part, that there lies practically the only obstacle 
which still delays the peaceful settlement which the British 
democracy desires." 

398. Conclusion. — Both politically and socially the year 
1920 was one of ferment and change, yet the outlook was full of 
encouragement. Wonderful advances had been made. The 
war had been won, democratic government had been established, 
and the needs of all classes of the population had become as 
never before matters of vital concern to everyone interested in 
the future welfare of the British nation. 

References for Chapter XIII. — There is no single history, on 
a large scale, of England in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 
but there are many excellent short works that cover all or the greater 
part of the period since 1815. A majoritj^ of such works stop with 
1901: Bright's History of England (Period IV, The Growth of 
Monarchy, 1837-1880, Period V, Imperial Reaction, 1880-1901); 
the Political History of England, ed. Hunt and Poole (Vol. XI, 1801- 
1837, by Brodrick and Fotheringham ; Vol. XII, 1837-1901, by Low 
and Sanders) ; the last volume (VIII) by J. A. R. Marriott of A History 
of England, Oman ed. ; McCarthy's A History of Our Own Times 
(2 vols., 1878), a clever but not a very profound work, which in three 
additional volumes has been extended to 1901 (Vols. Ill, IV, V, 1897- 
1905) ; Paul's History of Modern England, 5 vols., a journalistic work, 
political in treatment, but possessed of many admirable qualities, 
which ends at 1895 ; Sir Herbert Maxwell's A Century of Empire, 
3 vols. (1909-1911), which carries the subject in conservative fashion 
to 1900 ; and Sir Spencer Walpole's History of England frorn the Con- 
clusion of the Great War in 1815 to 1858, 6 vols, and its continuation 
The History of Twenty-Five Years, 1856-1880, 4 vols., which is espe- 
cially valuable for all that relates to internal affairs, particularly of a 
social and economic character. Ward's The Reign of Queen Victoria 
and Escott's Social Transformations of the Victorian Age stop with the 
eighties. 

Coming down to the present daj'^ — or nearly so — are Green's 
Shorter History of the English People, which has been continued by his 
wife in impressionistic style to 1914 ; Lingard's History of England, 
ed. Belloc, which has been carried not very satisfactorily to the ac- 
cession of George V (1910) ; and Gretton's A Modern History of the 
English People, 2 vols., which contains material drawn chiefly from 



REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XIII. 575 

The Times and current biographies and extends from 1880 to 1910. 
Haj^es in his Political and Social History oj Modern Europe, 1500-1914, 
has given an excellent brief account of England's development since 
Waterloo, and in his British Social Politics discusses, with accompany- 
ing documents, the most important social and political legislation of 
the seven years preceding the outbreak of the war. Slater in The 
Making of Modern England (2d ed., 1913) deals with the economic 
background from 1815 to 1914, with great insight and marked radical 
sympathies. 

There are many biographies of the statesmen of the period, of which 
only a few need be mentioned here. Stapleton's Life of Canning 
(1831) and Temperley's Life of Canning (1905) ; Trevelyan's Life of 
Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, Lord Grey of the Reform Bill (1920) ; Parker's 
Life of Peel, 3 vols. (1891-1899) ; Thursfield's Peel in the English 
Statesmen Series; Torren's L?/e of Melbourne (1878); Wallas ' s Lz/e 
of Francis Place (1898) ; Martin's Life of the Prince Consort (1875- 
1880) ; Lane Poole's Life of Stratford Canning (1888) ; Morley's Life of 
Cobden (1881) and Hobson's Life of Cobden (1919) ; Walpole's Life of 
Lord John Russell (1889) ; Balling's Life of Palmerston to 1846 (1871) 
and Ashley's Life of Palmerston from 1848 to 1865 (1876) ; Barnett 
Smith's Life and Letters of John Bright (1881) and Trevelyan's Life of 
John Bright (1913) ; Monypenny and Buckle's Life of Benjamin 
Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, 6 vols. (1910-1919) and Brandes's Disraeli 
(1880) ; Morley's Life of Gladstone, 3 vols. (1903) ; Fitzmaurice's Life 
of Lord Granville, 2 vols. (1905); Elliot's Life of Goschen (1911); 
Churchill's Life of Lord Randolph Churchill (1906) ; Holt's Henry 
Fawcett, the blind postmaster general (1914) ; Reid's Life of W. E. 
Forster (1888) ; Holland's Life of the Duke of Devonshire (Marquess of 
Hartington), 2 vols. (1911); Gwynn and Tuckwell's Life of Sir 
Charles Dilke, 2 vols. (1919) ; O'Brien's Life of Parnell, 2 vols. 
(1898) and Parnell's Charles Stewart Parnell, a Memoir (1914) ; How's 
Life of the Marquis of Salisbury (1903) ; Holmes's Queen Victoria 
(1901), Lee's Queen Victoria, a Biography (1902) ; Tooley's Life cf 
Florence Nightingale (1905) are representative of the period. Of recent 
statesmen we have Marris's Chamberlain (1900), Jeyes's Life and 
Public Career of Joseph Chamberlain (1903), and Mackintosh's Joseph 
Chamberlain (enlarged ed., 1914) ; Gooch's Life of Lord Courtney 
(1920); Alderson's Asquith (1905) and Spender's Asquith (1915); 
Alderson's Balfour (1903) and Raymond's Life of Balfour (1920) ; Red- 
mond-Howard's, John Redmond (1911), Wells's Life of Redmond (1919), 
and Gwynn's Redmond's Last Years (1920) ; Haw's TVill Crooks (1917) ; 
and Arthur's Life of Lord Kitchener, 3 vols. (1919). Bryce's Studies 



576 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. 

in Contemporary Biography (1903) contains estimates of Disraeli, 
Parnell, and Gladstone ; Sir Spencer Walpole's Studies in Biography 
(1907) has essays on Peel, Cobden, and Disraeli; and Esher's Yoke 
of Empire (1896) deals with the prime ministers of Queen Victoria's 
reign. There is also a life of Lloyd George by H. du Parcq (4 vols., 
1912-1914) and another of Winston Churchill by McCallum Scott 
(1905). 

There is no satisfactory constitutional history of the period. Taswell- 
Langmead deals very briefly with certain aspects of the period, Medley 
is almost as brief. Dale stops with 1832, and Chambers is chiefly de- 
scriptive after that date. May's Constitutional History of England, 
2 vols,, stops at 1860, but has been continued by Francis Holland in 
a third volume to 1911 (1912). Maitland's Constitutional History of 
England (1908) has an excellent analysis of government as it was in 
1888, at which date the volume ends. Dickinson has written a sug- 
gestive book entitled The Development of Parliament during the Nine- 
teenth Century (1895) and Rose another, The Rise and Growth of De- 
mocracy in Great Britain (1897) in the Victorian Era Series. The 
Reform Bills are discussed in Molesworth's History of England, 3 vols. 
(1874), Butler's The Passing of the Great Reform Bill (1914), and Sey- 
mour's Electoral Reform in England and Wales ( 1915) . Conditions before 
1832 are presented with great fullness by Porrit in Unreformed House of 
Commons, 2 vols, (new ed., 1909). On the diplomatic side we have 
Escott's The Story of British Diplomacy (1908), Egerton's British 
Foreign Policy in Europe (1917), which goes back to the Stuarts and 
Cromwell, and Esher's Influence of King Edward (1915), chapters I 
and II. Lucy's diaries of various parliaments, 1874 to 1905, 6 vols., 
are interesting, colloquial, and humorous. 

The literature which treats of the economic and social changes of 
the period is very extensive. Only a few references can be given h^re. 
In addition to the writings of Walpole, Slater, and Hayes, mentioned 
above, we have Gibbins's Industry in England (4th ed., 1912), Chej^ney's 
An Industrial and Social History of England (2d ed., 1920) which 
with two new chapters brings the subject to the present time in thought- 
ful and suggestive fashion, and the various writings of Sidnej' and 
Beatrice Webb, which cover many phases of the subject {English Poor 
Law Policy, 1910, English Local Government, The Parish and the County 
(1689-1835) 1907, The Manor and the Borough (1689-1835), 1908, and 
.The Story of the King's Highway, 1913, The History of Trade Unionism, 
enlarged edition, 1920, Industrial Democracy 1907). Toynbee's In- 
dustrial Revolution (4th ed. 1894) is a work that was famous in 
its day. Prothero's English Farming, Past and Present (1912), which 



REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XIII. 577 

is a new edition of his Pioneers and Progress of English Farming, 
is admirable. Gammage's History of Chartism (1894) has recently- 
been supplemented by Hovell, The Chartist Movement (1917), Faulkner, 
Chartism of the Churches (1916), Rosenblatt, Chartism in its Social and 
Economic Aspects (1916), and Slosson, Decline of Chartism (1916). 
Nicholls, History of the Poor Laws (new ed. 1894) is a standard work. 
Hutchins and Harrison's History of Factory Legislation (1903), Ham- 
mond's, The Town Labourer, 1760-1832 (1918) and The Village Labourer, 
1760-1832 (1918), dealing with the industrial evolution and the rural 
problem, are the onh^ works of importance in these fields. A useful 
series of works dealing compactly with their respective subjects make 
up the English Citizen Series: Traill, Central Government (1881); 
Jevons, The State in Relation to Labour (1882) ; Towle, The Poor Law 
(1882); Elliot, The State and the Church (1882); Chalmers, Local 
Government (1883) ; Farrer, The State in its Relation to Trade (1883) ; 
Craik, The State in its Relation to Education (1884) ; Maitland, Justice 
and Police (1885) ; Pollock, The Land Laws (3d ed., 1896) ; but they 
are now somewhat out of date. 

In the same series, Walpole's Foreign Relations (1882) and Cotton 
and Payne's Colonies and Dependencies (1883) are still of value. Ham- 
ley's, The War in the Crimea (1891), Events of Our Own Time Series, 
is chiefly a record of battles ; Malleson, The Indian Mutiny of 1857, 
in the same series (1891), Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny (5th 
ed., 1898), Forrest's History of the Indian Mutiny (1904), Rait's Life 
of Lord Gough (1903), Lee-Warner's Life of Dalhousie (1904), and Lord 
Robert's Forty-One Years in India (1898) may be consulted for the 
great Indian uprising. Keltic's Partition of Africa (1895) and John- 
ston's History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races (1899), with 
many other works on the same subject by the latter writer, are au- 
thoritative. Milner's England in Egypt (11th ed., 1904), Cromer's 
Modern Egypt, 2 vols. (1908), Colvin's, The Making of Modern Egypt 
(1906), Chirol's The Egyptian Problem (1920), "The Times" History of 
the War in South Africa, 7 vols. (1900-1909), and the British official His- 
tory of the War in South Africa, 4 vols. (1906-1910) may be mentioned. 

The best tempered book on Ireland and the Irish question to 1918 
is E. R. Turner's Ireland and England (1919), which contains an 
excellent bibliography. Similar in treatment is Ernest Barker's Ireland 
in the Last Fifty Years, 1866-1918 (2d and enlarged ed,, 1919), a fair-, 
minded and helpful summar}' by a moderate Home Ruler. Most of the 
literature on the Irish situation is controversial and even passionate. 
In addition to the works mentioned in Turner's bibliography we may 
note Against Home Rule, the Case for the Union (1912), by a group of 



578 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. 

Unionist writers with a preface by Bonar Law and an introduction bj' 
Carson ; Jones's History of the Sinn Fein Movement and the Irish 
Rebellion cf 1916 (1917), which is grimly anti-British; and Dawson's 
Red Terror and Green (1920), moderate but against Sinn Fein. 
O'Hegarty's Si7in Fein, An Illumination (1919), is by one officially 
connected with the Sinn Fein movement. Henry's The Evolution oj 
Sinn Fein (1920), though anti-Unionist, is on the whole fair-minded 
and restrained. Its author believes, however, that Sinn Fein will not 
be able' to accomplish its object and that political independence is for 
the present at least impossible. A work of first rate importance is 
McDonald's Some Ethical Questions of Peace and War with Especial 
Reference to Ireland (1919) . It is written by the professor of Theology 
in Maynooth, the famous Irish Roman Catholic seminary, and is char- 
acterized by fairness, justice, and truth. On the insurrection of 1916 and 
the Irish convention of the next year the most satisfactory works are by 
Wells and Marlowe, A History of the Irish Rebellion of 1916 (1916) and 
The Irish Convention and Sinn Fein (1918). There is an Irishmen of 
To-day Series containing lives of Plunkett, G. Moore, Yeats, and 
George W. Russell {M). 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR 

399. The British Empire. — Our attention has thus far been 
concentrated upon the British Isles and the growth of democ- 
racy and representative government within the mother coun- 
try itself. But a Greater Britain was in existence, scattered in 
different parts of the world, and made up of a great variety of 
colonies and dominions. These may be divided into groups as 
follows. First, possessions without self-government of any 
kind, such as Gibraltar, St. Helena, and islands in the Atlantic 
and Pacific oceans. Second, crown colonies, such as Ceylon, the 
Leeward Islands, etc., possessing local government but not self- 
government, and administered by the colonial office in London. 
Third, crown colonies, such as the Bahamas, Barbadoes, 
and Bermuda, possessing representative self-government but, 
since their governors and councils were appointed from London, 
not possessing responsible government, that is, complete control 
over their domestic affairs. Fourth, a protectorate, Egypt, 
so declared December 18, 1914 (thus bringing to an end the 
suzerainty of Turkey), itself almost an empire, with the Anglo- 
Egyptian Sudan behind it. Fifth, a dependency, India, an 
empire of more than 700 native states, provinces, and districts, 
none of them possessing parliamentary institutions or responsible 
government, varying in size from great kingdoms to pett}^ 
areas, in age from ancient dynasties to modern states, and in 
degrees of subordination to British rule from the native allied 
feudatories, self -administered, to the tracts directly under the 
control of British officials. Sixth, the great self-governing 
dominions, Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, 

579 



580 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

and South Africa, under responsible governments, which had 
evolved from crown colonies into modern constitutional states, 
in nearly all respects independent of outside control. 

No phase of nineteenth century history is more significant 
than the growth to an independent manhood of these great 
self-governing dominions of the British crown and no phase 
of British policy is more remarkable than the willingness of the 
mother country to advance these colonies along the path to 
responsible self-government. There was a time in the middle 
of the last century when Great Britain would have let these 
colonies go, as involving more responsibility and costing more 
money than her people were willing to endure. " These 
wretched colonies," said Disraeli in 1852, ** will all be in- 
dependent in a few years and are like a millstone about our 
necks." 

But later, in the seventies, opinions began to change. The 
colonies grew in size and importance, steam and electricity 
brought them nearer to the mother country in space and time, 
and the colonists themselves showed no disposition to cut 
themselves off from the old connection. A new idea arose of 
an empire bound together by ties of loyalty, by ideas and ideals 
common to all, and by sentiments of affection and pride. 
The indifference of statesmen in the fifties gave way to the en- 
thusiasm of the men of the nineties for imperial unity, and a 
movement gained headway looking to the drawing together of 
mother country and colonies into a great imperial federation. 

The foundations of the British Empire had been severely 
shaken by the American Revolution (1776), but the empire was 
prevented from breaking in pieces by two factors : first the terms 
of the Congress of Vienna (1815), which reestablished the empire 
and gave it legal recognition ; and, secondly, the eventual realiza- 
tion by the British government itself that colonies, once grown 
up, should cease to be used for the benefit of the mother country 
or be governed by officials with their offices in Downing Street, 
Westminster, but should be given full power to govern them- 



1914] THE BRITISH EMPIRE ON THE EVE OF WAR. 581 

selves in their own way. Responsible government was granted to 
Canada in 1848, to Newfoundland and New South Wales in 
1855, to New Zealand in 1856, to Queensland in 1859, to the 
Cape Colony in 1872, to Western Australia in 1890, to Natal in 
1893, and to the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in 1906. 

In time the colonies, under pressure of danger or economic 
necessity, felt the imperative need of drawing together into 
closer partnerships. Canada became a federal Dominion in 
1867, though Newfoundland, with special fishing interests of 
her own and a traditional dislike of her continental neighbor, 
refused to join. In 1900 the Australian colonies, after long 
hesitation, combined in a federal Commonwealth. In 1909 
the four South African colonies, Cape Colony, Natal, the Trans- 
vaal, and the Orange Free State, became the Union of South 
Africa. In form the federal system of Australia was similar to 
that of the United States, that of Canada was somewhat more 
centralized, while that of South Africa was not a federation 
at all, but a Union, since the four colonies in entering the new 
system voluntarily gave up all powers to the central govern- 
ment and became henceforth merely administrative provinces. 

400. The British Empire on the Eve of War. — In 1914 the 
territory of the British Empire covered more than a fifth of 
the land surface of the globe and its inhabitants numbered 
one fourth of the world's population. But its territories were 
scattered in all hemispheres and a majority of the subjects of 
the British king and emperor were of other than the Caucasian 
race. There was deep unrest among the natives of India and 
Egypt, and even as far as the self-governing dominions were 
concerned, where national and local interests were often antag- 
onistic to those of the mother country, there was no certainty 
that under the strain of disaster or war the British overseas 
people would rally to the mother's defense. 

No imperial system bound together the far-flung line of this 
great disjointed organization and no legal obligation held the 
inhabitants of colonies or dominions to the military service of 



582 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

the crown. Though the British navy was the first in the world, 
it was in largest part a British not an imperial navy. Inasmuch 
as the military forces of the dominions were used for local 
police and revenue-collecting purposes only, there was no im- 
perial army, the only instrument for the military service of the 
empire as a whole being the expeditionary force that was main- 
tained at home for service abroad whenever needed. No success 
had been attained in the attempts to foster an imperial com- 
merce, one of the strongest bonds of imperial union, by giving 
lower tariff rates to colonial commodities imported into Britain, 
since all schemes to that end had been frustrated by those who 
opposed Chamberlain's proposals for tariff reform. 

It is true that all these and other matters had been discussed 
at imperial conferences, six in number (1887, 1897, 1902, 1907, 
1909, and 1911), held in London, at which prime ministers and 
other officials from the dominions had been present, but the 
discussions, though of tremendous consequence in awakening 
interest and creating a better understanding, had had no legal 
results. 

Within the United Kingdom itself conditions in the year 
1914 were not indicative either of strength or unity. Ulster 
had been in revolt for two years on account of the threatened 
passage of the Home Rule Bill, and civil war seemed imminent. 
There were signs of insubordination in the army ; labor was 
discontented and restless and strikes were rampant; finances 
were in disorder and controversies over industrial and economic 
reforms were disorganizing political and social life ; the militant 
suffragettes were redoubling their energies and increasing their 
attacks on property and the government. Dissension, not 
harmony, seemed the order of the day. 

It is not surprising that to the outside observer the United 
Kingdom should have seemed honeycombed with disloyalty 
and the empire ready for disruption. At this juncture, when 
Great Britain, to all outward appearance at least, was little 
prepared to face a great crisis and to meet any extraordinary 



1878] THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT WAR. 583 

strain upon her resources, she was called upon to face the most 
terrible war in her history. The clouds of European discord 
were gathering for a storm and before the year was in its ninth 
month the continent was aflame with the flashes of conflict, and 
Great Britain, the most powerful of the maritime states of the 
world, was fighting for her very existence as a first-class world 
power. 

401. The Causes of the Great War. — The beginnings of 
trouble in Europe may be traced to the year 1878, when at the 
treaty of Berlin Austria was given permission to occupy and 
administer the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which 
belonged to Turkey. Thirty years later, Austria annexed these 
provinces, in the face of the protests of Russia, France, and 
England, thus making clear her determination to extend her 
territory toward the southeast in the direction of the ^Egean 
Sea. This attempt of Austria to obtain a hold upon Balkan 
territory was followed in 1911 by Italy's attack upon Turkey 
and the conquest of Tripoli, which was ceded to Italy by Turkey 
in October, 1912. 

These successful attempts of two of the leading powers of 
Europe to enlarge their possessions at Turkey's expense stirred 
up the Balkan states — Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and 
Greece — to renew once more their designs against Turkey, 
and beginning with October, 1912, they entered upon what are 
known as the Balkan Wars, the first of which lasted until the 
treaty of London, May 30, 1913. In this war the four Balkan 
states formed an alliance to drive Turkey out of Europe and 
to divide her territory among themselves. In this they were 
partly successful and at the treaty of London Turkey surrendered 
all her European lands except Constantinople and its environs. 

But in the division of the spoils, partly because of jealousy 
and partly because of the interference of Austria and Italy, 
who refused to allow Serbia and Montenegro to extend their 
territory to the Adriatic, trouble arose, and in June Bulgaria, 
counting on Austria's support, opened the second Balkan war 



584 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

in an attack upon Serbia. But she suffered defeat because 
Greece and Rumania joined Serbia and the Turks attacked 
her from the rear. By the treaty of Bucharest, August 10, 
1913, Bulgaria's territory was cut down to the advantage of 
Serbia, Greece, and Rumania, and even Turkey, because of the 
insistence of Germany, recovered Adrianople. 

The treaty was a defeat not only for Bulgaria but for Austria 
and Germany also, and its only noteworthy accomplishment, 
at least in the eyes of the diplomats, was the averting of a 
general European war. For this Sir Edward Grey, who, in 
conferences which he was instrumental in calling, labored inde- 
fatigably to that end, was largely responsible. Perhaps if the 
diplomats had paid less attention to the European situation 
and more to the settling of the Balkan difficulties, they might 
have prevented some future trouble. Their diplomacy was 
rather meddling than wise. 

In the years 1913-1914 relations between Austria and Serbia 
were strained almost to the breaking point. Serbia, supported 
by Russia, had succeeded, by means of the large accessions of 
territory which she had gained, in blocking Austria's Balkan 
ambitions. Austria had enormous pride and it was intolerable 
to her statesmen that she, and her protege Bulgaria, should 
suffer defeat at the hands of her despised neighbor. When, 
therefore, on June 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, 
heir apparent to the Hapsburg thrones, was assassinated, to- 
gether with his wife, at Serajevo, the chief city of Bosnia, the 
tension reached the breaking point. Austria declared, and with 
truth, that the assassins, who were Serbian students hating the 
Hapsburg regime, had received encouragement and assistance 
from Serbian officials, and she insisted that if this sort of thing 
were allowed to go on, the very existence of Austria Hungary 
would be imperiled. 

But as Serbia was backed by Russia, Austria would hardly 
have dared to punish her without definite assurances of aid 
from Germany. When the matter was brought to the attention 



1914] THE ATTITUDE OF GERMANY. 585 

of the Kaiser, by special messenger on July 5, 1914, he dis- 
cussed it with his chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, and assured 
Austria that whatever her decision might be regarding Serbia, 
Germany would stand behind her as an ally and friend. ^ In 
consequence of this promise, iVustria sent an ultimatum to 
Serbia, July 23, couched in almost insulting terms. When 
Serbia in reply demurred to some of the demands as impairing 
her position as an independent and sovereign state, Austria 
threw off the mask and on July 28 declared war on Serbia. 
During the exciting and nerve-racking days that followed, from 
July 29 to 31, the Kaiser and Bethmannmade a real but belated 
effort to get back into their hands control over Austria on the 
Serbian question and to persuade that power to accept a peaceful 
solution of the difficulty, but in vain. Count Berchtold, the 
Austro-Hungarian minister for foreign affairs, a reckless and 
unscrupulous statesman, refused to listen to any of Germany's 
suggestions for peace, and in consequence Austria must bear the 
immediate responsibility for the events that were soon to take 
place. 

402. The Attitude of Germany. — But Germany also must 
bear her share of the blame, though from documents now avail- 
able it is clear that neither the Kaiser nor Bethmann-Hollweg 
wanted the war or plotted to bring it about. Austria's reckless- 
ness and Russia's haste in rushing to the defense of Serbia set 
in motion a train of events that Germany was not able to control, 
particularly after the Kaiser's unfortunate decision of July 5 

1 There was no "imperial conference " or "crown council " held at Potsdam 
on July 5, as narrated in Ambassador Morgenihau's Story, pp. 84-85. Ac- 
cording to that story the Kaiser summoned his ambassadors, military and 
naval leaders, bankers, railroad directors, and prominent business men of 
Germany, and asked each in turn if he was ready for war. Each replied 
"Yes," except the bankers, who wanted a little more time. This story has 
been denied by Germans in a position to know and rests on no documentary 
foundation. It must be rejected as untrue. The Kaiser's decision to 
support Austria in energetic action against Serbia was all that Count 
Berchtold needed in order to carry out his policy. See the articles by 
Professor Fay in the American Historical Review for July and October, 1920. 



586 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

gave Berchtold assurance of German support. In this sense 
Germany was dragged into the war by Austria and Russia. 
But in another sense Germany went into the war a willing cap- 
tive. The Kaiser was only half-hearted in supporting some of 
Bethmann's peace proposals, which he deemed too favorable 
to Austria and prejudicial to Germany, while the military and 
naval leaders, disliking all peace efforts, blocked Bethmann's 
plans at every point and in the end completely thwarted his 
policy. They were responsible for the sending of the two hasty 
ultimatums, mentioned below, that brought on the general war. 

Militaristic Germany did not want peace. Since 1871 the 
Empire had grown to be a powerful state — next to England the 
most powerful in the European world, and of this state, which 
was federal in character, Prussia was the leading member. 
The imperial government was autocratic — despite the existence 
of a popularly elected Reichstag — and was under the control 
of the military and landholding classes, who exercised the chief 
influence in politics. In 44 years Germany had become very 
wealthy, because of the expansion of her industries and her 
commerce, and she had already attained preeminence among 
the trading nations of the world. Her people had increased 
from 41,000,000 in 1871 to 66,000,000 in 1914, a population 
out of proportion to the capacity of the land to feed them, 
and the number was steadily growing larger. 

Three conditions dominated the German situation at this 
time : first, national pride and ambition, which aimed at world 
leadership; secondly, insufficient territories, which hampered 
progress and prevented the German people from fulfilling what 
they conceived to be their destiny ; and thirdly, a spirit of mili- 
tarism permeating government and people alike, which looked 
to the huge army and growing navy as the instruments where- 
with to attain desired ends. To these factors must be added a 
prevailing suspicion of the other European powers, and a state 
of mind which associated France with revenge. Great Britain 
with jealousy, and Russia with ambition, and construed every 



1914J DECLARATIONS OF WAR. 587 

diplomatic move as directed against Germany. Hence the 
origin of the idea of the " encirchng " of Germany by Great 
Britain, France, and Russia — the Triple Entente — and of the 
forging of the " iron ring," which when completed, by the 
addition of the smaller states, would crush Germany. Hence 
also arose the idea of a " preventive " war, that is, the idea of 
striking first and so preventing the welding of the chain. In 
1914 German militarists believed that the time was ripe for 
such a war and they seized upon the Austrian Serbian quarrel 
as a pretext. 

403. Declarations of War. The Neutrality of Belgium. — 
Events moved quickly in that summer of 1914 and the world 
stood aghast as one happening followed another. On July 
28 Austria declared war on Serbia ; on July 29 Russia began 
to gather together, that is, to mobilize, her army ; from the 
29th to the 31st frantic efforts were made, chiefly by England, 
to effect a settlement, but without success ; on the 31st Germany 
issued two ultimatums, one to Russia, demanding that she 
cease her warlike preparations within twelve hours, and one to 
France, asking whether or not in case of war she would remain 
neutral. On receiving Russia's refusal, Germany immediately 
declared war against her, August 1, and when France declined 
to commit herself declared war against her also, August 3. 
Thus four of the great European powers were already com- 
mitted to a terrible conflict. Would the area of battle be en- 
larged? Italy at once announced her refusal to follow her 
partners in the Triple Alliance and remained neutral. What 
would Great Britain do? 

Great Britain was under no bond to enter the war on either 
side and Germany had hoped that she would declare for neu- 
trality. In fact the German chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, 
had already approached Sir W. E. Goschen, the British am- 
bassador at Berlin, with the question, promising to respect the 
territory of France but not that of her colonies, if Great Britain 
would stand aloof. Sir Edward Grey indignantly rejected 



588 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

the offer. In the end Germany herself was responsible for the 
final decision. Twenty-four hours before war was declared 
against France, Germany set in motion her troops toward the 
western frontier, not toward that portion bordering on France 
between Luxemburg and Switzerland, but toward the frontier 
of Luxemburg and Belgium, states whose neutrality had been 
guaranteed by treaties to which both Prussia and England 
were parties. On August 2 the troops occupied Luxemburg, 
and on August 3, after Belgium had absolutely refused to 
grant the German troops permission to pass through the state, 
they violated Belgium's neutrality by crossing the border. 
On August 4 Great Britain took her place beside France and 
Russia and entered the war against Germany. 

The decision was a momentous one, not only for Great Britain 
but even more for Germany, who, though the greatest military 
power in the world, had now arrayed against her two great 
mihtary nations and an empire whose navy ranked first among 
the navies of the earth. No wonder German diplomats were 
disappointed and angry, and berated Great Britain, as the Ger- 
man chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, bitterly declared, for 
making war on a kindred nation just for a scrap of paper — 
the treaty of neutrality. 

For the sake of getting into France by the quickest route, 
Germany gave to Great Britain the strongest possible pretext 
for intervening in the great conflict, and in so doing threw down 
the gage of battle to the mistress of the seas. This was the 
first of Germany's many diplomatic blunders,* based on a 
serious miscalculation of British strength and character; for 
in the end Great Britain proved to be the mightiest of all the 
obstacles that lay in the path of Teutonic victory. 

404. The Conquest of Belgium. First Battle of the Marne. — 
Having made up her mind to invade Belgium, Germany began 
the attack by way of the northern of two lines, one of which ran 
from Cologne, through Aix, Liege, Namur, and Maubeuge, 
the other, the southern, from Coblentz, through Luxemburg 



1914] THE CONQUEST OF BELGIUM. 589 

to Verdun. The heroic resistance of the Belgian people, led 
by their high-minded and courageous king, Albert, so dis- 
arranged Germany's plans that eighteen days were required 
instead of six in which to cross the neutral state. This delay 
enabled the British to send across the channel into France a 
small expeditionary force of 150,000 men under Gen. Sir John 
French (the " contemptible little army " as the Kaiser called 
it), and, in combination with the French under the general 
command of Gen. Joffre, still further to stay German progress. 

But, compelled to retreat, the Franco-British forces fell back, 
the French from the i\.rdennes, the British from Mons (August 
20-24), fighting fiercely as they went. Taking their stand 
finally on a line curving deeply from Verdun toward Paris 
(only eighteen miles away) and beyond in a northerly direction, 
they began a counter-attack in the first battle of the Marne 
(September 6-12), one of the decisive battles of history. In a 
series of engagements, the most brilliant of which was the 
attack by Gen. Ferdinand Foch at the center along the Marne, 
the Germans were compelled to retreat. 

Thus the carefully laid plans of the German General Staff 
were thrown into confusion, their hope of capturing Paris at 
one stroke was destroyed, and belief in the invincibility of the 
German armies received a staggering blow. The despised 
Belgians and the ** contemptible " British shared with the 
numerically larger French army in the glory of this almost 
miraculous success. 

Foiled in their effort to capture Paris, the Germans fell back 
on prepared positions to the center and south ; but in the north 
they continued their offensive by capturing Antwerp (October 
8) and attempting to obtain possession of the Channel ports. 
They seized Zeebrugge and Ostend, but got no further, for in 
the frightfully bloody battle of Flanders (October-November), 
along a line from the coast to Ypres and Arras, Belgians, British, 
Canadians, and French held back three German armies and 
completely frustrated their attempts to break through. After 



590 



THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 



[1914 



November, battles in the open ceased, and both sides settled 
down for the winter in parallel lines of trenches, stretching 
from the coast to Switzerland for nearly six hundred miles, of 
which the Belgians held 18, the British and Colonials 31, and 
the French 543. 

Thus Germany not only failed in her immediate object, but, 
by her barbarous methods of conducting war and her atrocious 

treatment of Belgian towns 
and inhabitants, she spread 
such a feeling of horror 
among civilized peoples 
and so shocked the moral 
sense of the Western World 
as to make her enemies 
determined to defeat her 
at all costs. 

405. Great Britain's 
Effort, 1914-1915.— Great 
Britain was not a mihtary 
nation, but she had al- 
ready accomplished won- 
ders with her little army 
and had exhibited a cour- 
age and tenacity of pur- 
pose that was beyond 
praise. But the fighting 
in Flanders and notably 
the loss of Antwerp, which the British government tried to 
prevent by means of a badly planned expedition, showed such 
inadequate preparation that government and people began 
slowly to realize the magnitude of the task before them. Lord 
Kitchener, England's greatest soldier,^ had already been 

1 Kitchener was drowned off northern Scotland, June 6, 1916, when the 
Hampshire, on which he had embarked for Russia, was sunk. He was suc- 
ceeded as war minister by Lloyd George. 




Kitchener of Khartum. 



1914] BRITISH NAVAL SUPREMACY. 591 

appointed secretary of war and immediately set about raising 
an army. Volunteers from every walk of life responded heroi- 
cally to the call to arms. Preparations were begun to make 
up deficiencies in guns, ammunition, and supplies of all kinds, 
and with feverish determination men and women turned from 
their daily tasks to the business of meeting in every way the 
needs of the soldiers at the front. 

From the colonies — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and 
even India and the Malay States — came heartening promises 
of help and cooperation ; and troops began to gather at various 
points in response to the call of the mother country. By the 
spring of 1915 there were nearly 800,000 volunteers, English, 
Scottish, Irish, and Welsh, available from the United Kingdom 
itself, and 200,000 more from the colonies and India, either at 
the front in France, in training camps, or on their way overseas. 
The response of the colonies was a magnificent exhibition of 
loyalty. In the end not a single member, large or small, of 
the widely scattered British world failed to make some con- 
tribution, either in men, supplies, money, or all three together, 
to the common cause. 

406. British Naval Supremacy. — More important even 
than this impressive demonstration of the unity of the British 
Empire was Great Britain's share in maintaining the mastery 
of the seas. In conjunction with the navies of France and 
Russia, her fleet was able to restrict the area of fighting to the 
soil of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It not only swept all merchant 
vessels from the ocean- and drew around the Central Powers a 
blockade that barred food, raw materials, and military supplies 
from reaching their armies and civilian population, but it 
effectively bottled up the German fleet in German waters 
and rendered useless the great naval strength which for fifteen 
years Germany had done so much to develop. 

Furthermore, it kept the seas open for the transportation of 
men and supplies from all parts of the British world and guarded 
with sleepless vigilance the passageway of the Channel, across 



592 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

which to France passed a continuous stream of men, equip- 
ment, ammunition, food for the armies, and doctors, nurses, 
and suppHes for medical and hospital service. It enabled France 
to bring colonial troops from northern Africa, and later aided 
the United States to transport her troops across the Atlantic. 
One only has to consider what the situation would have been 
had Germany controlled the seas to realize that Great Britain's 
naval supremacy was the greatest single factor in the winning 
of the war. 

407. Naval Exploits : Raiders and Sea Fights. — Except 
for one big sea fight, the battle of Jutland (§411), there was 
during the war no conclusive matching of strength at sea. 
Germany gained a few spectacular successes. Two cruisers, 
the Goeben and the Brcslau, which happened to be in the Medi- 
terranean, took refuge at Constantinople, and, by continuing 
hostile attacks under Turkish auspices, eventually drew the 
Ottoman Empire into the war on the side of Germany. Single 
raiders — Emden, Konigsbcrg, Eitel Fritz, and Kronprinz 
Wilhelm — had exciting careers in various parts of the world, 
but were eventually destroyed or compelled to seek safety in 
neutral harbors. A German squadron in the East, under 
Admiral von Spec, defeated and sank a smaller British squadron 
under Admiral Craddock off Chile on November 1, 1914, but 
was itself destroyed a month later near the Falkland Islands by a 
British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sturdee. These various exploits 
had little effect either one way or the other on the final result. 

In August, 1914, a British squadron, under Sir David Beatty, 
attacked German war vessels anchored under the guns of the 
heavily fortified island of Heligoland, and inflicted serious 
losses at slight cost ; and in January, 1915, a German raiding 
fleet, attempting to bombard the English coast, was met off 
Dogger Bank by the same naval officer and his fleet and severely 
punished. 

408. The Dardanelles Expedition. — The year 1915 opened 
auspiciously for the Allies. The German plan of campaign 



1915] THE DARDANELLES EXPEDITION. 593 

had failed ; the armies in France had settled down to trench 
warfare ; the British people were strengthening themselves for 
a protracted war, in which Allied resources were likely to hold 
out longer than those of the Central Powers ; the British Empire 
was displaying remarkable strength and cohesion ; and the 
French were demonstrating marvelous fighting powers and 
the solid qualities of endurance and determination. Japan, 
who had entered the war on the side of the Allies (August 23, 
1914) and seized the German leased territory of Kiao-Chao 
in China (September-November), was declaring herself ready to 
keep the Germans out of Eastern waters. Germany's dream of 
colonial and commercial supremacy gradually vanished, as one 
by one her colonies and colonial areas were captured, for by 
July, 1915, not a colonial possession remained in German hands, 
except parts of Kamerun, which were not occupied until Feb- 
ruary, 1916, and German East Africa, which was not com- 
pletely conquered until November 14, 1918, three days after 
the war was officially ended. 

Early in November, 1914, Russia, Great Britain, and France 
declared war upon the Ottoman Empire, because of its failure 
to prevent the Breslau from committing acts of hostility 
against Russian towns on the Black Sea. Three months later, 
the British and French governments resolved to take the offen- 
sive, by forcing their way through the Dardanelles and capturing 
Constantinople. This famous exploit, which ended in terrible 
failure, lasted from February to December, 1915, and was one 
of the outstanding features of the war, partly because of the 
heroism displayed by the Allied troops (French, British, Aus- 
tralians and New Zealanders, or " Anzacs," as they came to 
be called,^ with troops from Senegal and India) and partly 
because of the terrible losses incurred. The failure was due in 
the beginning to bad management and poorly laid plans, and in 
the end to lack of reserves and sufficient shell supplies. At the 
opening of the attack British and French battleships bombarded 

^ From the initials of the Australia and New Zealand Auxiliary Corps. 



594 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1915 

for more than a month the Turkish forts at the entrance of the 
straits, but without other result than the loss of three of their 
first-class vessels. 

Meanwhile their troops, to the number eventually of 300,000 
men, were landed on the western shore of the Gallipoli peninsula 
and gained at tremendous cost a precarious foothold, to which 
they clung for nine months. Though frequently victorious in 
single attacks, they were unable to drive the Turks from their 
intrenched strongholds on the heights, and at the close of the 
year they gave up the attempt. Though the undertaking as 
a whole reflected but little credit upon those who promoted it, 
it shed infinite glory upon the British and French navies and 
upon the men who for nine long months faced death from 
cold and heat, thirst and pest, and continuous Turkish 
shell-fire. 

409. Close of 1915. Loss of Allied Prestige. — The year 
which had opened so auspiciously for the Allies closed in dis- 
couragement. The Dardanelles campaign was a dismal failure ; 
Russia, who, before May 1, had raised Allied hopes by her 
splendid advances toward Hungary and in Poland, was forced to 
give way before the Germans under the able leadership of 
Gens. Mackensen and Hindenburg, and withdrew from Poland 
and Galicia (in August and September). In September 
Bulgaria, encouraged by the Russian losses, joined the Central 
Powers, and the Allied troops, gathered at Salonica on the 
iEgean, were unable to advance because of the attitude of 
Constantine, the pro-German king of Greece, and the Kaiser's 
brother-in-law. Germany was beginning to recover from the 
disasters of 1914 and to extend her control over the territories 
southeast and east. Also, she was preparing to build up a 
great state of ** Middle Europe," which was to be completely 
under her own domination, and to receive large sections of 
the Balkans and of Russia. 

On the Western front, the Allies made little progress with 
trench warfare, because the German troops were too strongly 



1915] CLOSE OF 1915. LOSS OF ALLIED PRESTIGE. 



595 



established in trenches, redoubts, and other fortifications, which 
were often underground and were constructed in a most sub- 
stantial manner of timber and concrete. They had unlimited 
numbers of guns and supplies of ammunition. Against these 
continuous lines of trench fortresses, the Allies hurled them- 
selves in vain. Among the most severe of these battles were 
those of Neuve Chapelle (March 10, 1915), which cost the British 
13,000 men; and Ypres (April-May, 1915), begun by the Ger- 
mans and famous as the 
first battle in which as- 
phyxiating gas w^as used, 
but ending without suc- 
cess on either side. The 
Germans considered these 
onslaughts failures for the 
Allies, and the Allies 
themselves realized their 
own inferiority to the 
Germans in munitions, 
guns, aeroplanes, and 
other weapons of war. 

To meet this state of un- 
preparedness, the British 
people redoubled their 
efforts and Great Britain 
became a land of munition 
factories, turning out in 
ever-increasing numbers 
guns, shells, grenades, armored cars, and gas masks, which were 
hurried over to France in the shortest possible time. Because 
of a general dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war and a 
demand for a more aggressive policy Gen. French was replaced 
(as chief commander of the British armies in France) by Gen. 
Sir Douglas Haig (December, 1915). To meet a falling off in 
recruiting, due largely to discontent with the government 




General Sir Douglas Haig. 
Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. 



596 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1916 

policy, a limited conscription bill was passed by parliament in 
January, 1916. 

410. Verdun, February-August, 1916. — Germany's hopes 
were high at the opening of 1916. Russia was helpless, the 
Allies were apparently inferior on the Western front, and the 
great state of " Middle Europe " was, outwardly at least, a 
reality. To anticipate an Anglo-French drive, which they 
knew was bound to come at the earliest possible moment, the 
German military leaders determined to begin a great drive of 
their own, and that too in a quarter where success would be most 
likely to discourage the French and possibly put them out of the 
war. Their objective was the great fortress of Verdun, one of 
the four which France had erected to protect her Eastern front 
from German invasion. To *' bleed France white," to weaken 
her defense, to destroy her morale, to force her to conclude 
peace — these were the purposes of the Germans as far as 
France was concerned. To enhance Germany's prestige, to 
glorify the Hohenzollern dynasty, to give the army of the crown 
prince a chance at victory, to silence criticism at home — 
these were their reasons as far as Germany herself was con- 
sidered. 

The attack was made on February 21, 1916, by the German 
army under the command of the Crown Prince Frederick Wil- 
liam and was accompanied by a bombardment of overwhelming 
fury. The advancing Germans, taking the French by surprise, 
were at first successful in dislodging the enemy and driving 
them from one stronghold after another, back toward the 
fortress. But the arrival of Gen. Petain with reenforcements 
brought the onslaught to a halt and finally forced the Germans 
to retire. The first phase of the battle lasted until February 
29, when the German staff became aware that only at a fearful 
cost could victory be won. However, they could not withdraw 
at this juncture, for withdrawal would be more disgraceful than 
defeat, and it became necessary for them to take Verdun no 
matter what the cost should prove to be. From March 6 until 



1916] THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND. 597 

April 15 they continued their assaults with criminal disregard 
of the lives sacrificed ; but the French had said to themselves, 
" They shall not pass," and pass the Germans never did, though 
they continued to fight with all the fury of a maddened and 
baffled foe. Charge followed charge, the artillery continued 
its withering fire of high explosives ; and mines, gas, liquid 
fire — every contrivance known to an ingenious and desperate 
foe — were used with deadly effect. But the French met fire 
with fire, their lines held, and before summer had gone all 
realized that the German sacrifices had been made in vain. 
The failure at Verdun was the second great German defeat of 
the war. The fortress itself was never taken. 

411. The Battle of Jutland, May 31, 1916. — Germany's 
outlook in May was far less encouraging than it had been in 
January, for the carefully planned attempt to strike a blow at 
the heart of France had failed disastrously. Italy had declared 
war in May, 1915, during the Dardanelles campaign, and an 
advance upon her by Austrian troops, begun while the Verdun 
enterprise was under way (May-June), brought no encourage- 
ment, for the Italian lines held against every attempt to break 
them. The Russians were showing signs of recovery. The use 
of the submarine, which for a year or more had been effective 
against the merchant marine and had found its greatest victim in 
the unarmed Cunard steamer Lusitania, May 7, 1915, was stir- 
ring the neutral states to wrath, and in March Portugal declared 
war on Germany. The United States, outraged by the loss 
of American lives on the Lusitania, and further agitated by the 
sinking of the Sussex in the English Channel on March 24, 
1916, was demanding a cessation of such ruthless methods of 
warfare. 

At this juncture the Germans, taking the gambler's chance 
of scoring a success, determined to risk a naval battle. On 
May 31, 1916, the German fleet left its base at Kiel and steamed 
northward in search of the British Grand Fleet, which as they 
knew was on one of its tours of inspection through the North 



598 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1916 

Sea. On one side were Admirals von Hippen and von Scheer, 
with some forty dreadnaughts, cruisers, and destroyers ; on 
the other Admiral Jellicoe v/ith the main British fleet and 
Vice Admiral Beatty with a subsidiary squadron — together 
totaling fifty battleships and smaller craft. 

The battle began in the afternoon and continued until dark- 
ness brought the engagement to a close. Beatty 's squadron, 
while separated from the main fleet, closed with the enemy, but, 
outnumbered and outclassed, it suffered heavy damage and was 
obliged to retreat. On the arrival of Jellicoe's heavier vessels 
the Germans were forced to retire, but eluding pursuit in the 
mist and darkness they were able to make their way safely, 
though with a heavier proportional loss, back to their moorings 
at Kiel. The margin of advantage lay with the British. Both 
on land at Verdun and at sea off Jutland the Germans had 
failed to secure a victory. " They shall not pass " was true 
not only of the heights about Verdun, but also of the passes of 
Italy and the waters of the North Sea. 

412. Concerted Allied Drives, June-November, 1916. — The 
remainder of the year 1916 was devoted to efforts on the part 
of all the Allies to bring the war to a close by concerted military 
attacks on all fronts at the same time. They hoped that the 
Central Powers, discouraged by failure in battle, weakened at 
home by danger of famine and by fear of internal revolutions, 
would be unable to withstand a combined offensive of this 
kind. An Allied military council met in Paris in March and 
adopted plans for common action in matters concerning the 
blockade, munitions, and the prosecution of the war. As a 
result of the lessons learned in 1915, the munitions situation 
had improved enormously. Under Lloyd George as minister 
of munitions. Great Britain was equaling Germany in her 
output and in the efficiency of her organization and was sending 
across the Channel a supply from her 2000 government-con- 
trolled factories, that surpassed each week the entire stock in the 
country before the war. Under the circumstances the iVllies 



1916] CONCERTED ALLIED DRIVES. 599 

were convinced that the time had come for a general offensive, 
on a scale hitherto unknown, against the enemy. 

So vastly had the area of war widened that there were now 
six fronts from which an offensive could be launched — the 
West, Italy, Russia, Salonica, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. 
Up to this time but little had been done either at Salonica or in 
Egypt, but in Mesopotamia an ill-advised advance up the 
Tigris had resulted in the capture by the Turks of Gen. Towns- 
hend with a small British expeditionary force in November, 1915. 
The Allies were now ready to strike at all these points, in a series 
of offensives simultaneously directed. 

At first the results were encouraging. The Russians entered 
the Bukowina and on June 16 occupied Czernowitz, ready to 
force the passes of the Carpathians north of Transylvania 
(June-August). On August 27 Rumania, confident that 
Russia's success would be permanent, joined the Allies. On 
August 9 the Italians, advancing from the Trentino front, cap- 
tured Gorizia and gained a foothold on the Carso plateau. 
In July the British and French began the battle of the Somme, 
and with the aid of terrific artillery fire, the use of armored 
motor trucks with caterpillar treads, known as " tanks," and 
hundreds of aeroplanes, which though long a part of every battle 
were here employed with extraordinary success, drove back the 
Germans for a space of about seven miles. The contest was 
continued in successive waves of attack through September 
and on the part of the French into November ; and though the 
territory gained was relatively small, the prolonged offensive 
compelled the Germans to concentrate their entire attention 
on the Western front and brought upon them enormous losses 
in killed and wounded. The casualty lists of both Germans and 
Austrians were beginning to assume ominous proportions, and 
the world was wondering how long the Central Powers could 
stand such losses of men. 

Then the tide of success turned. Gen. Mackensen attacked 
Rumania in September and in an extraordinarily short time over- 



600 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1916 

ran the greater part of the country. Russia, already suffering 
from an incompetent and corrupt administration at home, did 
little to help, and the Allied -forces at Salonica under Gen. 
Sarrail, upon whom Rumania counted for a diversion against 
Bulgaria, were not only unprepared and insufficient in numbers, 
but were held back by fear of Greece, who threatened attack 
from the rear. Rumania, isolated and dependent solely upon 
her own strength, collapsed, and Mackensen entered the Ruma- 
nian capital, Bucharest, on December 6. These German 
successes in the southeast were somewhat offset by a French 
victory at Verdun (October-November), where Gen. Mangin 
in a furious counter-attack recovered some of the most 
important strategic points that the Germans, at terrific 
cost, had gained earlier in the year. Much as Germany 
might accomplish in the East, she was making no progress in 
the West, and it was in the West that the final victory was 
to be won. 

413. Germany's Submarine Policy. Entrance of the United 
States.^ — For the moment the Allies were disheartened. In 
England Asquith resigned because of bitter criticism by the 
Times and other newspapers under Lord Northcliffe's control, 
and Lloyd George, who became prime minister and minister 
of war, formed a coalition cabinet, with a war committee of five 
members (December 6). Germany, believing that the Allies 
were ready to consider peace, made advances in various direc- 
tions but without the slightest success, for the Allies had no 
confidence in the peace overtures of a power that was occupy- 
ing enemy territory and extending widely its control over the 

1 Before 1918 war was declared against Germany by Russia, France, 
Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Japan, Serbia, Montenegro, Portugal, 
Rumania, the United States, Cuba, Panama, China, Brazil, Siam, Liberia, 
and Greece. In 1918 Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Nica- 
ragua did the same. Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Santo Domingo, and Uruguay 
severed diplomatic relations but did not declare war. Holland, Spain, 
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Persia, Mexico, Paraguay, Vene- 
zuela, United States of Colombia, Chile, and Argentina remained neutral. 



1916] 



GERMANY S SUBMARINE POLICY. 



601 



lands to the eastward in order to lay the firm foundations of a 
Germanized " Middle Europe." 

Failing to end the war by victory in battle or by peaceful 
negotiation, the German government listened favorably to the 
persuasions of the military and naval leaders who for some time 
had been urging the use of the submarine as a certain means of 




" Middle Europe." 

As it existed, 1916-1918. The territory lightly shaded is that surrendered 
by Russia at Brest-Litovsk , December, 1917. 



success. Bethmann-Hollweg at first favored this Pan-German 
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, and consequently 
on January 31, 1917, the government issued a note announcing 
that from February 1 all vessels, whether neutral or belligerent, 
would be sunk at sight, if found within certain prescribed areas 
adjoining Great Britain, France, and Italy, and in the eastern 
Mediterranean. 



602 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1917 

This arrogant and inhuman declaration of war on all sea 
traffic, with its attendant and inevitable murder of innocent 
victims, was based on the belief that Great Britain was Ger- 
many's most deadly foe and that, cost what it might, she must be 
struck a vital blow with whatever instrument lay ready to 
German hands. Even at the risk of making an enemy of the 
United States, whose temper and fighting ability she greatly 
underrated, Germany decided that British commerce must be 
destroyed and the British Isles brought to that state of star- 
vation to which the Germans believed the British by their 
blockade were endeavoring to reduce the Central Powers. 
The new policy was an act of desperation, due to Germany's 
overestimating the power of the submarine to bring Great 
Britain to her knees and underestimating the consequences 
likely to follow should the United States enter the war. 

By this ruthless violation of the freedom of the seas, Germany 
succeeded in stirring to its depths the resentment of the Amer- 
ican people and of uniting all classes and sections of the United 
States in a grim determination to end forever this menace to 
the peace of the world. On February 3, 1917, von Bernstorff, 
the German ambassador at Washington, was given his passports ; 
on April 2 President Wilson, in an address of great force and 
dignity, advised Congress to declare war ; and on April 6, 
after both houses had adopted a declaration of war, issued a 
proclamation announcing that a state of war existed between 
the United States and the Imperial German Government. 

Though a peaceful people and ill-prepared for war, the x4mer- 
icans had enormous wealth and endless resources, a large 
fleet, the material for an army of thirteen millions of men, and 
infinite courage and tenacity. The entrance of the United 
States into the war not only brought new vigor, new enthusiasm, 
and new ideals into the conflict, but also heartened the jaded 
Allies who had for two and a half years borne the brunt of the 
fighting, and were weary, discouraged, and war-spent. The 
only doubt that lay in the Allied minds, — and it was the doubt 



1917] UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE. 603 

that decided Germany in the adoption of her- undersea boat 
pohcy, — was whether the United States could raise and train 
an army and transport it when trained across three thousand 
miles of a submarine-infested ocean in time to save the Allies 
from what Germany believed to be certain defeat. 

414. The Russian Revolution. — For the moment the situa- 
tion looked ominous. In March, 1917, a revolution broke out in 
Petrograd (St. Petersburg), the Czar, Nicholas II, was com- 
pelled to abdicate, and a provisional government was estab- 
lished. At first this uprising was welcomed by the Allies and the 
United States as the overthrow of autocracy and the .bringing 
of Russia into line with the democratic states of the West; 
but as summer came on the conditions grew steadily more dis- 
turbing. The provisional government of the moderate middle 
class gave way under pressure from the radicals, until finally 
the Bolsheviki, led by Lenin and Trotsky, who belonged to 
the extreme socialist group, seized the power and established a 
dictatorship of the proletariat, a minority element, working 
through " Soviets," or committees of workmen, soldiers, and 
peasants. The result was twofold : first, the Russian army at 
the front went to pieces and Russia ceased to be of value to the 
Allies as a military power; and secondly, in December, 1917, 
at a gathering of German and Bolshevik representatives at 
Brest-Litovsk, east of Warsaw, the Bolshevik government 
made peace with Germany and permanently retired from the 
war. 

415. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. — While Russia was 
thus deserting the Allies and passing into a state of chaos and an- 
archy, Germany was testing her policy of frightfulness at sea. 
From February to July, 1917, the submarines reaped a fearful 
harvest of Allied and ^leutral merchant vessels, causing the 
loss of thousands of lives and the destruction of immense 
quantities of munitions and foodstuffs. But the sinking of 
so large a number of ships could not be maintained. From 
a total of 4,000,000 tons lost before July, 1917, the number 



604 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1917 

decreased to 2,200,000 from July to December, to 1,150,000 
from January to March, 1918, and to 950,000 from April 
to May. 

This steady decrease betokened eventual failure. It was 
due in part to the skill with which the British and American 
navies patrolled the seas and protected their commerce, the 
successful use of nets, depth-bombs, convoys, aeroplanes, 
dirigible balloons, and ship-disguises and screens of various 
kinds, and in part to the serious difficulties which Germany 
encountered in building, refitting, and manning her undersea 
boats. By the end of 1917 it was everywhere conceded that 
the submarine policy was but another of Germany's blunders, 
and that her atrocious weapon had turned in her own hand. 
The British people were not only unbroken in health and spirit, 
but were more resolute and determined than ever to pursue the 
war to the bitter end, while across the ocean were coming in 
regular succession convoyed fleets of transports carrying thou- 
sands of soldiers from America, undeterred by submarine and 
equally resolute to play their part in the war for democracy and 
humanity. 

416. Allied Victories in the West, 1917. — Though Russia 
was lost, the United States was taking its place as a working and 
fighting partner with the Allies, and with boundless energy and 
unexpected rapidity was preparing itself for war. Already had 
the government loaned the Allied powers nearly ten billions 
of dollars ($9,600,000,000) and now continued its dispatch 
of munitions, provisions, grain, and clothing in ever-increasing 
quantities. Before midsummer it had sent Admiral Sims with a 
fleet to join the British in British waters and Gen. Pershing with 
a contingent of regulars to aid the Allies in France. By 
December there were on French soil 250,000 American soldiers. 
The welcome that these men received testified to the war- 
weariness of England, France, and Italy and to the joy every- 
where felt at this visible evidence of America's determination to 
take part in the winning of the war. 



1917] ALLIED VICTORIES IN THE WEST. 605 

In the meantime the AUies were making substantial gains 
along the western front. The war of attrition had been going 
steadily on and plans were under consideration for another 
smashing offensive against the German lines. In previous 
attacks the French and British had broken the lines at many 
points, creating, here and there, salients, or projecting angles, 
that were difficult for the Germans to defend. 

Consequently Gen. Hindenburg, who had been made chief 
of the German army staff in August, 1916, resolved to withdraw 
to a stronger system of trenches, which had long been in process 
of construction, and which, though given various names by the 
Germans themselves, came to be known among the Allies as the 
Hindenburg Line. His object was in part to straighten the line 
and to shorten it, getting rid of the salients, and in part to antic- 
ipate the Allied offensive and to compel them to attack in open 
ground, already waste and desolate. 

The x\llies accepted the challenge, and believing that the 
withdrawal was a confession of weakness, began a concerted 
advance. On March 17 Gen. Haig with the British and Gen. 
Nivelle with the French entered on their pursuit of the retreating 
Germans. In the battle of Arras (April-May) and in the battle 
of the Aisne (April 16-20) Haig and Nivelle gained ground, and 
further fighting by the British at Ypres and Arras, and of the 
French at the Chemin des Dames and Laon and in October at 
Soissons and Verdun disclosed the Allied determination to win 
a decision if possible. 

In this succession of great battles in Flanders, at Arras, on 
the Aisne, and at Verdun, accompanied by terrific artillery 
barrages, mine explosions, the use of tanks, aeroplanes, and 
gas, and furious attacks and counter-attacks, English, Irish, 
Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and French smashed 
into the German defense, occupied many square miles of terri- 
tory, and captured thousands of prisoners. But they were 
unable to win a positive victory or to drive the Germans 
beyond the Hindenburg Line. 



606 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1917 

417. Allied Victory in the East. Greece. — While the Allies 
were driving the Germans back upon the Hindenburg Line, 
encouraging signs of eventual victory were appearing in the 
East. At the beginning of the year, Gen. Maude, moving up the 
Tigris, avenged the defeat of Townshend in 1915 by capturing 
Bagdad (March 10, 1917) and occupying Mesopotamia. On 
June 12, in Greece, the Allies forced the pro-German king, 
Constantine, to abdicate in favor of his son, Alexander, and with 
Venizelos, the greatest of Greek statesmen and a friend of the 
Allies, as prime minister, brought Greece at last Into line with 
the enemies of the Central Powers. With Greece friendly and 
united, a forward move from Salonica against Bulgaria was 
certain to be made in the near future. The situation in Egypt 
was materially simplified when the year before (November, 
1916) Husein, sherif of Mecca, revolted from the Ottoman 
Empire, set up the independent state of Hedjaz (Arabia), and 
aided the British in their efforts to advance into Palestine. As 
a result, Gen. Allenby captured Jerusalem on December 10, 
1917, and amid the rejoicings of the Christian World ended 
the rule of the Turks in the Holy I^and. 

418. Pacifist Movement. Italy's Defeat. — Although the 
events of 1917 everywhere showed the enduring power of the 
Allies and brought many successes, the situation at the end of the 
year was curiously disquieting. The Allies had been unable to 
win a major victory ; the United States was still uncertain as a 
fighting power and doubtful as to military readiness ; the 
importance of the advantages gained in the East was not fully 
appreciated, for no one knew the extent to which Allied suc- 
cesses in Greece, Macedonia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia 
might affect Bulgaria and Turkey ; the German line in France 
and the Austrian line in Italy seemed impregnable, and though 
rumors of distress, discontent, and even revolt came out of 
Germany and Austria-Hungary, no one was quite sure how far 
these rumors were true or how far the tales of weakening morale 
among the soldiers at the front were to be believed. 



1917] PACIFIST MOVEMENT. ITALY'S DEFEAT. 607 

A seditious form of pacifism was raising its ugly head both in 
France and Italy, and even Great Britain was not free from 
dangerous pacifist tendencies, particularly among the Labor 
leaders, German intrigue was everywhere at work encouraging 
peace opinions, propagating peace proposals, and condemning 
the blood-thirstiness of the Allies for persisting in the useless 
and sanguinary war. 

The most menacing of these pacifist activities were in France 
and Italy. In France peace with the Central Powers was 
openly plotted by Caillaux, former prime minister, a man of 
unscrupulous and sinister character, by Bolo Pasha, former 
French official in Egypt, by Humbert and Duval, newspapermen, 
and several others. The movement became so aggressive that 
public opinion reacted against it; Ribot, the prime minister, 
was overthrown and in his place was appointed (November 
16, 1917) Georges Clemenceau, the " Tiger," whose fear- 
lessness and patriotism made him at this critical time the 
spokesman of undefeated France. Clemenceau ordered the 
arrest and imprisonment of Caillaux (January 14, 1918), and 
later Bolo and Duval were seized and executed for treason. A 
dangerous situation was boldly faced and safely tided over. 

But in Italy the results were more disastrous. In October 
and November, Germany and Austria, after carrying on a 
campaign of intrigue among the soldiers on the Italian front, 
made a combined attack upon the Italian line, broke it at Capo- 
retto, where disaffection had been most rampant, and hurled it 
back, first upon the Tagliamento river, and finally upon the 
Piave, the mouth of which was only fifteen miles northeast of 
Venice. There the rout was stayed and there the Italians, aided 
by British and French reenforcements, stood fast. Gen. 
Diaz took the place of Gen. Cadorna at the head of the army, 
Orlando became the head of the ministry, and the Italian people, 
shocked and sobered by the '' treason of Caporetto," rallied 
with new patriotic fervor to the cause of the Allies. 

By the spring of 1918 the shadow of discouragement had begun 



608 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1917 

to lift, hope was in the air, strong men were in poUtical command 

— Clemenceau in France, Orlando in Italy, Lloyd George in 
England, where the pacifist Henderson had resigned from the 
War Cabinet, and in America Wilson, whose Fourteen Points, 
issued on January 8, 1918, became the platform of the Allies 
during the remainder of the war. 

419. Germany's Last Effort. The Great Drives. — Germany 
was as blind as were the Allies to the signs of the times. Ignor- 
ing the manifest weakness and lukewarmness among her allies 

— Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey — and the un- 
substantial character of all her Eastern conquests, she believed 
that the time had come to complete her work by one final effort 
in the West. Her leaders thought that Italy was defeated, 
that France was bleeding to death, that Great Britain was at 
the end of her resources and facing starvation, and that the 
United States would not be able to enter the war for another 
year. They resolved to strike at once and with all their might, 
and both Field Marshal Hindenburg and his efficient colleague, 
Gen. Eric Ludendorff, promised the German people that this 
time they would be successful. 

The German military leaders planned to take the Allies by 
surprise at carefully selected points of attack in the long line 
and by the use of picked troops {Sturmtruppen) to open gaps 
through which those behind could pour or ** infiltrate," thus 
causing the Allied forces to crumble instead of being forced 
back as had been the case with the earlier frontal or mass 
attacks. The fact that the Germans were on the inside of the 
curve was to their advantage, as they could the more easily shift 
their troops from point to point when needed. 

The series of battles or '' drives," begun on March 21, 1918, 
with an attack on the British line in Picardy, was perhaps the 
greatest military encounter in all recorded history, because of 
the numbers engaged on both sides, the fury of the onsets, the 
stubbornness of the defense, the devices of war employed, 
and the issues at stake. On the 21st the Germans struck be- 



1918] GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT. 609 

tween Arras and the Oise, where the British under Gen. Byng 
and Gen. Gough were holding the line, in a measure unprepared 
for the attack that was coming. Forced to give way, they re- 
treated in good order, contesting every inch of the ground, until 
with the aid of French reenforcements, they brought the Germans 
to a standstill. By March 26 the drive was over, the Germans 
had gained a large amount of territory and captured many 
prisoners, but the " infiltration " plan had not been successful, 
the British line was intact, and Amiens, the German objective, 
was still beyond their reach. 

Again the Germans struck, this time farther north, between 
Arras and Ypres, and again the British gave way, fighting 
during three heartrending weeks with stubborn determina- 
tion, making the Germans pay heavily for every inch of ground 
they won, until in the old fighting region of Passchendaele and 
Messines ridges and Mt. Kemmel, the final test was made. 
The Germans succeeded in occupying Mt. Kemmel, but there 
the men of the thin British line with their backs to the wall 
held the day and the Germans advanced no farther. Ypres was 
not taken. 

When in March the Allied leaders saw that Germany was pre- 
paring for a final spring, they realized that nothing should be left 
undone to meet it. At the opening of the drive, Gen. Pershing, 
with self-effacing promptness, placed the American troops that 
were in France at the service of the Allies, and a few days later 
at an Allied conference held near Amiens (March 25), while 
disaster threatened the Allied arms, the all-important decision 
was reached to place Gen. Ferdinand Foch at the head of all 
the Allied forces, and so to bring all the Allied movements under 
the command of a single head. At the same time new efforts 
were made to increase the reserves. American troops were 
arriving each month, in constantly increasing numbers — more 
than half a million were ready in April and more than a million 
in July ; and on April 8, England adopted an unlimited con- 
scription act, which, though it brought on trouble with Ireland 



610 



THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 



[1918 



and embittered still further the relations between the two coun- 
tries, showed that despite all the difficulties involved, England 
was determined to win. 

Germany's next great effort was against the French on the 
Aisne and the Oise, May 26-29, and progressed much as had 
the drives against the British in the north. Relentlessly and 

irresistibly, the French 
were driven back in three 
days of terrific fighting 
until the Germans stood 
again on the Marne at 
Chateau Thierry and on 
the Oise at Noyon, and 
were nearer Paris than 
at any time since 1914. 
The situation looked 
ominous. Could they 
widen their gains to in- 
clude Rheims on one side 
and Compiegne on the 
other? If they could, 
nothing could save Paris. 
But they never did. 
Every attempt made from 
June 6 to June 13 to ex- 
tend their gains on the 
flanks failed of success, and a final onslaught on Rheims, 
June 18, ended in failure. At fearful cost the Germans had 
gained ground, but nowhere had they broken through or 
seriously weakened the Allied lines. It was a matter of 
serious import that on June 6 they had been even compelled 
to fall back for a short distance at Chateau Thierry, and that, 
too, before a body of French and Americans who drove them 
across the Marne. This cooperation of the Americans at a 
singularly opportune moment and their successful appearance 




General Ferdinand Foch. 
Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. 



1918] ALLIED COUNTER-OFFENSIVE. 611 

as a fighting force at what appeared to be the high-water mark 
of the German offensive was an incident of first class im- 
portance. 

Twice more did the Central Powers strike, but with nothing 
like the same force or success. From June 15 to 18 Austria 
endeavored to break the Italian line in the Piave, but failed 
completely ; on the same dates the Germans made one more 
supreme effort to cross the Marne and widen their gains on the 
southern side ; but again the French and Americans held them 
in check, the latter displaying unexpected fighting power in 
holding their ground and forcing a German contingent back 
across the river. It was the beginning of the end, for before 
the Germans could concentrate for another attack, the Allies 
under Foch's brilliant leadership had begun their counter- 
offensive. Germany had won her last victory. 

420. Allied Counter-Offensive. — Trusting in the ability 
of the American troops, which were now arriving regularly and 
in large numbers, not only to serve as a great reserve force but 
also to take their places on the firing line with the veterans 
of France and England, Gen. Foch, on July 18, ordered an ad- 
vance. With new confidence and undiminished ardor, the 
Franco-Americans under Gens. Mangin and Degoutte attacked 
the western side of the German line from the Aisne to Chateau 
Thierry. Their success was immediate. The Germans fell 
back in retreat and on August 3 Soissons was taken. From 
this time the Germans, bitterly resisting along every mile of 
their line, were gradually forced back upon their defenses. 
Their reserves were gone, their munitions and supplies were 
diminishing, and their soldiers, broken in morale, were losing 
confidence in their commanding officers. 

Foch's offensive in the second battle of the Marne and his 
capture of Soissons were followed almost at once by a general 
movement all along the Allied line. On August 18 the British 
and French under Gens. Rawlinson, Byng, and Debeney assailed 
the German line in Picardy, Plumer struck near Ypres in 



612 



THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 



1918 



Flanders, while Mangin continued his assaults on the Aisne. 
By September 1 the Germans were back on the Hindenburg 
Line, having lost all that they had gained since March and 
suffered casualties amounting to hundreds of thousands of men. 




Zeebrugge 

Ostend 



Line of July 15 1918 

" " Nov. 10 " 



<^N SWITZ. 



The Allied Counter-Offensive, July-November, 1918. 

On September 12 the first independent American army began 
a major operation of its own by smashing in the St. Mihiel 
salient, which had been in German hands since the beginning of 
the war. Later in September the whole Allied line again made 



1918] COLLAPSE OF THE CENTRAL POWERS. 613 

a concerted advance. Belgians, British, British-French, French, 
French-Americans, and Americans, driving hard and steadily, 
attacked and crossed the Hindenburg Line, the Americans 
playing a brilliant part in the Argonne and along the Meuse, 
where the extraordinarily strong defenses and the hundreds of 
machine-gun " nests " made progress slow and costly. 

The Germans fought with the courage of despair, hoping to 
resist defeat and capture. But they could not stem the Allied 
advance, and by November 1 were driven almost entirely out 
of Belgium and France. King Albert recovered his kingdom, 
the British were approaching Mons, — the starting point of their 
famous retreat, — while the French and Americans were forcing 
their way down the valley of the Meuse, threatening to cut off 
the German retreat. At last the Germans realized that if 
they were to be saved from complete disaster they must sue 
for peace. 

421. Collapse of the Central Powers. — While Gen. Foch 
was directing the concerted attack along the Western front, he 
was watching with understanding and readiness the situation in 
Italy, Salonica, and the farther East. With preparations made 
and a well-supplied army in hand, he ordered Gen. d'Esperey 
to move from Salonica northward against Bulgaria. On 
September 14 the advance was begun and in less than two 
weeks the Serbians, French, British, and Greeks, who made up 
d'Esperey 's army, had overrun Macedonia and occupied south- 
ern Serbia and part of Bulgaria. On September 30 the Bulga- 
rian government sued for peace ; on October 4 the crafty King 
Ferdinand abdicated and fled ; and within a month all Serbia 
was in Allied hands, the Danube reached, and the Teuton state 
of " Middle Europe " had vanished in thin air. 

On the heels of the Balkan victory came success to Italy. 
On October 24 Gen. Diaz struck the Austrian army along the 
Piave and drove it back in headlong flight. Austria collapsed, 
November 3. At the same time Gen. Maude on the Tigris 
and Gen. Allenby in Palestine and Syria set their troops in 



614 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1919 

motion, the one capturing Aleppo on October 26 and com- 
pletely disorganizing the Turkish troops, the other seizing 
Mosul about the same time and coming into undisputed control 
of the whole Mesopotamian region. In the face of these three 
advancing forces, in Macedonia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, 
Turkey signed an armistice and withdrew from the war (Octo- 
ber 30). 

Germany was now without an ally. Defeated at every point 
on the Western front, her people frantic with fear of impending 
invasion and seething with the spirit of revolt, she bowed to 
the inevitable and on November 11, 1918, at five o'clock in the 
morning, accepted and signed the terms of an armistice, to 
begin at 11 a.m. on that day. The greatest of wars was over. 

422. Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919. — On January 18, 
1919, there gathered at Paris representatives of 27 states and 
five British dominions, 70 authorized delegates in all, to consider 
terms of peace. There they remained for nearly four months, 
their leaders — at first an executive steering committee, the 
members of which represented the United States, England, 
France, Italy, and Japan, and, after March 24, the " Big Four," 
Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson, and Orlando, aided by 
experts — engaged in the extraordinarily difficult task of for- 
mulating terms of peace to meet the situation created by four 
years of war and the defeat of Germany. The same '* Big Four," 
in whom all real power finally rested, also drew up the plan of 
a League of Nations, wherewith to create a new international 
organization, for the purpose of maintaining peace and pre- 
venting future wars and, in many important specified particulars, 
of promoting the general welfare of civilization. 

On May 7 the text of the treaty was ready for signatures. 
As the Kaiser, William II, had abdicated, November 28, 1918, 
and a democratic republic had been set up in Germany, the 
German delegates represented the new government. These 
delegates, demurring to the hard terms of the treaty, prolonged 
the discussion, and it was not until June 28 and the sending of a 



1919] POSITION OF GREAT BRITAIN AFTER THE WAR. 615 



second set of delegates that the treaty was finally signed. This 
act was the more humiliating for Germany in that it took place 
in the Hall of Mirrors of the royal palace of Versailles, where in 
1871 William I of Prussia had been proclaimed German Em- 
peror. The short-lived German Empire had had in reality but 
two emperors : William I, who established it under the guidance 



'"ft 
1 * : ■ 




m. 1 . • P 


LJi^n 


•' '»- ■ -'-smii •■"•'■■•*• ' • - -iJ^-tywM^ii^ 



The " Big Four." 
Lloyd George, Orlando, Clemenceau, Wilson. 

of Bismarck, and William II, who lost it in aiming at world 
dominion. The treaty was finally ratified on July 7 by the 
German National Assembly sitting at Weimar.^ 

423. Position of Great Britain after the War. — By the 
treaty of peace Great Britain and her dominions secured im- 
portant accessions of territory, either in the form of actual 
additions or as '* mandataries," that is, territories which they 

1 Austria made peace with the Allies, September 10, 1919 ; Bulgaria, 
November 27, 1919 ; Hungary, June 4, 1920 ; and Turkey, August 10, 1920. 



[1919 



616 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 

held in a sort of trusteeship. Australia received certain islands 
in the Pacific, south of the Equator ; New Zealand, Germany's 
part of Samoa; the Union of South Africa, German Southwest 
Africa ; Great Britain herself, parts of Togoland and Kamerun 
and, as a mandate, the greater part of German East Africa' 
which she renamed Tanganyika Territory. Two small prov- 
inces in the northwest, adjacent to the Congo, were assigned as 
a mandate to Belgium. During the war, when Turkev was the 
ally of Germany, Great Britain had abrogated alf Turkish 
rights in Egypt, and on December 18, 1914, had declared that 
land a British protectorate. Shortly before, November 5, she 
had formally annexed Cyprus, and in 1919 by agreement brought 
Persia within her sphere of influence. Thus the territorial range 
of the empire was materially increased and, especially in Africa, 
to Its advantage, for by the mandate of German East Africa 
Great Britain secured control of a section of African land that 
in German hands had blocked her path from Egypt southward 
to, Cape Town and prevented her from completing her Cape to 
Cairo railway. 

More important even than accessions of territory was the 
effect of the war upon the Empire itself. The shock of German 
attack, mstead of breaking the empire into pieces, had welded 
It together more firmly than before. The response of the 
colonies to the mother's call disclosed two things : first, that the 
loyalty to the mother land of all parts of the British World 
was deep-seated and unshakable; and secondly, that the 
/empire " was in reality not an empire at all, but a partnership 
ot nations, each of which had poured out its blood and treasure, 
not because of any binding obligation to do so, but because of 
pride in the connection with Britain and of devotion to the 
ideals and purposes that were common to all members of the 
British world. 

Out of a population of 7,000,000, Canada sent an army of 
300 000 and kept in reserve at home as many more. Australia 
and New Zealand sent overseas 400,000 men out of a population 



C.Du£J^^'"''ii, 



vooo i.J-C.Washingt, . , 
incoln ^^.HAZEN _^ ^ 




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D. ,' / 
Queen Vi^toida 
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NDSA,ZICflY>r 



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TfRANZ JOSEF 

jWwiLCZE< 

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A K 



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HO" Longitude 80° Eatt fiom lOu'' 



1920] ATTITUDE TOWARD EGYPT AND INDIA. 617 

of 6,000,000. South Africa, where only twenty years before 
the Boers had fought against British absorption, sent 76,000 
men to conquer German South West Africa, 30,000 to aid in the 
conquest of German East Africa, and 26,000 to Europe, while 
two of the old Boer leaders. Gens. Botha and Smuts, served 
loyally under the British flag. 

Most remarkable of all was the loyalty of India, where princes 
and potentates made the extraordinary contribution of a 
million and a half of men, together with huge supplies of clothing 
and gifts of money. A million native Indians served on the 
firing line, in almost every fighting section, and their cooperation 
testified to India's appreciation of the value of the British con- 
nection and to her well-founded confidence in British justice and 
honor, 

424. Attitude toward Egypt and India. — The strength of the 
British Empire lay in its elasticity and adaptability. Freedom 
and local self-government for all those peoples that were ready 
were the foundations upon which it was built, and with these 
principles unimpaired, there was no inclination among the great 
dominions to sever their connection with the mother country. 
The sense of a common historical past, the feeling of kinship, 
and the realization of strength in unity formed unbreakable 
bonds. 

That the British government was prepared to extend the 
privilege of self-government to any of its colonies, dependencies, 
or protectorates that was competent to exercise it, became evi- 
dent after the war. In 1919 it conferred upon Malta the 
right to govern itself, and in 1920, on the recommendation of 
the Milner commission, appointed to consider the situation in 
Egypt, began negotiations looking to the independence of that 
country and the drafting of a constitution which should 
define the powers of the Khedive and of a responsible native 
ministry and assembly. Under the new arrangement England 
herself was to retain such privileges as would safeguard the 
merchants, protect the Suez Canal, and defend Egypt against 



618 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1920 

foreign aggression. Observers, who had Uved in Eg} pt, viewed 
with some concern the proposed experiment and wondered 
whether the natives there were sufficiently awake to the re- 
sponsibihties of government to be intrusted with the right to 
rule themselves. But the fact that England, notwithstanding 
all that she had done for the material welfare of the land, had 
never won the confidence and sympathy of the native Egyptians 
of the better class, who were largely responsible for the prevail- 
ing agitation and discontent, seemed to make the experiment 
worth trying. 

Toward India its attitude was extremely sympathetic. Al- 
ready had Sir Edward Montagu, the colonial secretary, and Lord 
Chelmsford, the viceroy of India, in a remarkable report, recom- 
mended a form of modified home rule for that country, whereby 
native Indians should be associated with every branch of the 
Indian administration. The signal service of Indian princes 
and people to the empire during the war revealed a temper and 
loyalty so marked that in 1919 the British government deter- 
mined at once to extend self-government as far as it was possible 
and desirable to do so, with the idea of granting gradually but 
eventually responsible government similar to that exercised by 
the dominions. In 1917 commissions were issued to Indian 
officers who had served with distinction in the war, and in 1919 
a bill was passed by parliament and became a law whereby the 
voters in India were increased from 33,000 to 5,179,000, and a 
considerable measure of self-government granted. The old 
absolute control was abolished, a new era for India opened, and 
that dependency took its place as an integral member of the 
British commonwealth of nations, and was represented in all 
imperial conferences, with an adequate voice in foreign policy 
and foreign relations. 

425. New Status of the British Empire. — Great Britain had 
emerged from the war the strongest naval and colonial power in 
the world, knit together in all its parts with a strength tested by 
mutual suffering, loss, and bitter conflict. It was no longer an 



1920] NEW STATUS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 619 

empire, but a commonwealth of nations, in which the mother 
country stood to the great dominions and India, not as a superior 
or even as a head but as a senior partner in a great cooperative 
system. During the war the imperial conference, to which 
reference has already been made as first meeting in 1887 (§ 400), 
was enlarged as an Imperial War Conference, and side by side 
with the War Cabinet arose an Imperial War Cabinet for the 
consideration of matters concerning the empire as a whole. 
Upon both these boards sat representatives of the dominions 
and of India. Thus the unity of this widely scattered British 
world was preserved by two institutions common to all : first, 
by the hereditary kingship, approval of which was manifested 
during the war by expressions of loyalty to King George and 
after the war by demonstrations of welcome to his son, the Prince 
of Wales, who in 1919 and 1920 made a tour of all parts of the 
empire and even visited the United States ; and, secondly, by a 
system of conferences, the character . and functions of which 
were still to be worked out, where either in an imperial com- 
mittee or imperial cabinet the common welfare of the whole 
British world would be preserved. Thus the British Empire 
entered upon a new era in its history. 

References for Chapter XIV. — There are a number of excellent 
books describing briefly the expansion of the British Empire. Among 
the best are Currey's British Colonial Policy, 1783-1915 (1916), Wil- 
liamson's Foundation and Growth of the British Empire (1899), Hughes's 
Britain and Greater Britain in the Nineteenth Century (1920), and 
Hawke's The British Empire and its History (1911). Longer and more 
detailed is The English People Overseas, by A. Wyatt Tilley, 4 vols. 
(1912) and still more elaborate is Sir Charles Lucas's A Historical 
Geography of the British Colonies, six vols, in twelve (1905-1915), 
a remodeled and revised edition of a work which is more historical than 
geographical and has long been a standard authority. Supplemental to 
it, because treating of present-day conditions and hot of the past, is 
Herbertson and Howarth's Oxford Survey of the British Empire, 6 vols. 
(1914), a work admirably adapted for general reading. For Canada 
the most elaborate history is Canada and its Provinces (Shortt and 
Doughty eds.) 23 vols. (1914-1917), but there is a popular work in 



620 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 

32 small volumes, extending from the "Dawn of Canadian History" 
to "The Railway Builders," which, though bearing no running title, 
is in fact an excellent history of Canada (1915-1916). The best short 
history is that by Egerton in Vol. V, Pt. II. (1908) of Sir Charles 
Lucas's work mentioned above. Lucas's History of Canada, 1763- 
1812 (1909), Bradley's Making of Canada, 17G3-1S14 (1908), Morison's 
British Supremacy and Canadian Self -Government, 1839-1854 (1919), 
and Bradley's Canada in the Twentieth Century (1903) supplement 
the other works. Necessary and important documents can be found in 
Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-1791, 
(Shortt and Doughty, eds.), 2 vols, (new ed. 1918) and in Canadian 
Constitutional Development, Shown in Selected Speeches and Despatches, 
1759-1867 (Egerton and Grant, eds., 1907). The only work of 
importance for Newfoundland is that of Prowse, A History of New- 
foundland (2 ed. revised, 1896), but it is not very satisfactory. 

For Australia and New Zealand we have Scott's A Short History of 
Australia (1919), Jenks's A History of the Australian Colonies (3d ed. 
1912), Wise's The Making of the Commonwealth of Australia, a Stage in 
the Growth of the Empire, 1889-1900 (1913), written by one who took 
part in the movement, and Douglas's The Dominion of New Zealand 
(1909), the last two being in the All Red Series. Other histories of New 
Zealand are Rusden's History of New Zealand, 3 vols. (2d ed. 1896), 
Reeve's The Long White Cloud (2d. ed. 1900), and Scholefield's New 
Zealand in Evolution (1909). 

For South Africa the elaborate history by Cory, The Rise of South 
Africa, a History from the Earliest Times to 1857, 4 vols., has reached 
the year 1840 with the third volume (1919). Short histories are 
Theal's South Africa (5th ed. 1900), Scully's History of South Africa 
from the Earliest Days to the Union (1916), and Fairbridge's A History 
of South Africa (1918). G. W. Eybers has issued Select Constitutional 
Documents Illustrating South African History, 1795-1910 (1918). In 
Worsfold's The Reconstruction of the New Colonies under Lord Milner, 
2 vols. (1913) we have an admirable work, which can be used in con- 
nection with the same author's Union of South Africa (1912) and 
Beak's The Aftermath of War (1906). 

The works on India are very numerous. The most rehable compact 
history is Vincent Smith's The Oxford History of India from the Earliest 
Times to the End of 1911 (1919), but there are older summaries, of which 
the best is Ly all's The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in 
India (1907). Ramsay Muir has printed a collection of documents 
with excellent introductions in Making of British India, 1756-1858 
(1915). Indian Unrest by Sir Valentine Chirol (1910) and India: 



REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XIV. 621 

Its Administration and Progress, bj^ Sir John Strachey (4th ed. revised 
1917), are interesting and informing. For biographies see the Rulers 
of India Series. 

Mention maj^ be made of MicheU's Life of Cecil Rhodes, 2 vols. (1910), 
Kitson's Life of Captain James Cook, the Circumnavigator (1907), and 
for Great Britain and the smaller islands of the Pacific, Scholefield's 
The Pacific : Its Past and Future and the Policy of the Great Powers 
from the Eighteenth Century (1920). For the Empire at large we have 
Lucas's The Biitish Empire (1915), Newton's The Old Empire and the 
New (1917), Keith, Select Documents Illustrative of British Colonial 
History, 2 vols, (1918), and Egerton's Federation and Union within the 
British E^npire (1911), the last-named containing seven annotated 
documents, from the Articles of Confederation in New England (1643) 
to the Union of South Africa Act (1910), with an elaborate intro- 
duction and a bibliography. 

The literature of the Great War is so extensive that no attempt can 
be made here to give more than a few selected titles. The best com- 
plete account in a single volume is Hayes's A Brief History of the Great 
War (1920) with a concluding chapter on the peace settlement (XV), 
appendices, and a bibliography. Other brief histories are Usher's Story 
of the Great War (1920) and Vast's Little History of the Great War 
(1920). Longer works are Buchan's Nelsons History of the War, 
24 vols. (1915-1919) and The London "Times" History of the War, 
21 vols. (1920). For the origins see Rose's The Origins of the War 
(1917), Seymour's The Diplomatic Background of the War (1916), and 
Davis's The Roots of the War (1918). Three important articles by Fay, 
" New Light on the Origins of the World War," have recently appeared 
in the American Historical Review for July, Oct. 1920, Jan. 1921. 

For the war in its relation to Great Britain consult Murray's The 
Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey (1915), Knight's A History of Great 
Britain during the Great War (1916), Beer's The English Speaking 
Peoples, Their Future Relations and Joint International Obligations 
(1917), Ward's England's Effort (1916), Toivards the Goal (1917), and 
Fields of Victory a919), Masefield's Gollipoli (1916) and The Old Front 
Line (1917), Jellicoe's The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916 (1919), Dixon's 
The British Navy at War (1917), Hurd and Bashford's The Heroic 
Record of the British Navy, 1914-1918 (1919), Spencer-Cooper's Battle 
of the Falkland Islands (1919), and particularly Sir Julian Corbett's 
Naval Operations, prepared as part of the British official history of 
the war, of which Vol. I, in two parts, carrying the subject to the 
Battle of the Falklands, appeared in 1920. A conspicuous phase of 



622 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 

the naval history is presented in Hunter's Beatty, Jellicoe, Sims, and 
Rodman (1919), and Sims's The Victory at Sea (1920), which describe 
the cooperation of the British and American naval forces in North Sea 
patrol service. Of importance also are Maurice's The Last Four Months, 
How the War was Won (1919), Clark's To Bagdad with the British (1917), 
Massey's How Jerusalem Was Won (1920) and Allenhys Final Triumph 
(1920), Haig's Despatches (1920), Hamilton's Gallipoli Diary (1920), 
and O'Neil's The War in Africa, 1914-1917, and in the Far East 1914 
(1919). Suggestive essays may be found in Pollard's The Common- 
wealth at War (1918) and War: Its History and Morals (1918). 

Satisfactory accounts of the work accomplished at the Peace Confer- 
ence are to be found in : Haskins and Lord's Some Problems of the Peace 
Conference (1919), Scott's An I ntroduction to the Peace Treaties (1920) 
with a chapter (III) on the Peace Conference, and A History of the 
Peace Conference of Paris (ed. Temperley), 5 vols., of which three were 
issued in 1920. The last named work is a cooperative undertaking, 
originally planned by an American historian, the late George Louis Beer, 
which is now being carried forward by British and American writers, 
whose purpose is to describe honestly and impartially what was actually 
accomplished at the Conference. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

426. General Remarks. — There are at least five different 
types of government prevailing among the more important 
territories that to-day make up what is commonly known as 
the British Empire. First, there is the government of the 
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which rests 
not upon a written constitution, but upon law, custom, and 
tradition. Secondly, there is the government of the great self- 
governing dominions, which in each case is based upon a written 
document, in the form of an act of parliament, defining the 
organs and functions of government. Thirdly, there is the gov- 
ernment of the crown colonies, which is regulated by commis- 
sions and instructions, drawn up by the Colonial Office, issued 
as orders in council by the Privy Council, and sent to the gov- 
ernor of the colony. Fourthly, there are the powers and duties 
of commissioners and others resident in protectorates, which 
are determined by instructions from the Foreign Office. Lastly, 
there are the powers granted to chartered companies, which are 
carefully stated in their charters, drawn up by the legal officers 
of the crown and issued under the great seal. 

First and most important of all is the government of the 
United Kingdom, which has its seat at Westminster. The 
form of government there is determined by law and tradition : 
law in the shape of the common law, the great charters of liberty, 
the decisions of the courts of justice, and the statutes of parlia- 
ment; tradition in the shape of thousands of usages and cus- 
toms, some of which have no legal importance but depend for 
their strength upon sentiment and opinion, while others have 
become precedents that are almost as weighty as law and are 

623 



624 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

accepted as if they were law. Because the British constitution 
is not a written document, as is that of the United States, but a 
mass of judicial decisions, statutes, and usages, it is constantly 
changing in one part or another, as the years pass, and adapting 
itself with wonderful flexibility to the conditions of national 
life. In the United States the constitution can be amended 
only in accord with the terms laid down in the written docu- 
ment itself ; in Great Britain it can be altered at any time and 
in any way by parliament, which has power to repeal any act 
that it pleases, and to pass another that may be quite different. 
It can legislate for all things, great or small — disestablish the 
Church of England or grant Home Rule to Ireland, regulate 
the shipping of poultry or determine the wages of seamen. 

In another respect does the British constitution differ from 
that of the United States. The latter, intentionally and pre- 
cisely, separates the functions of government into three dis- 
tinct parts — executive, legislative, and judicial, — but in the 
British system no such distinction prevails. For instance, 
the king who is the chief executive has legislative duties, which 
though formal are so important that no bill can become law 
without his assent ; the cabinet, which is executive in origin 
and continues to be executive in many of its functions, has 
become the chief legislative factor in parliament, since no bill 
can pass without its approval ; the ministers of the crown, 
whose duties are executive and administrative, sit in parliament 
and are responsible to it rather than to the king ; the House of 
Lords, which is a legislative body, exercises very important 
judicial functions ; the Privy Council, an executive body, 
has its judicial committee, the highest court of appeal in the 
empire. Thus the three groups of powers, instead of being 
separated, are closely interwoven. 

The fact that the British constitution, more than any other 
constitution in the world, is a growth and not a creation, renders 
a knowledge of its history indispensable to any understanding 
of its operation. It has undergone constant alteration in the 



GENERAL REMARKS 625 

past and will continue to undergo alteration in the future. 
Some of these changes concern the most important parts of the 
government. For example, the king, who in Norman days 
was tending to become absolute and even until the eighteenth 
century continued to exercise real executive and legislative 
authority, has to-day lost all constitutional power; the House 
of Commons, which until the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury was inferior in dignity and influence to the House of Lords, 
has become practically the sole law-making body ; the prime 
minister and the cabinet, which are not recognized by law and 
owe their existence to no statute or royal order, are the most 
important part of the executive and legislative machinery ; 
the voters, who numbered less than 200,000 in the eighteenth 
and early nineteenth centuries, have to-day reached the enor- 
mous total of 21,000,000, and whereas in the eighteenth cen- 
tury they were almost a negligible quantity in government, 
they are to-day the sovereign power in the state. 

As was to be expected from such a history, the British con- 
stitutional system is full of survivals, contradictions, and irregu- 
larities. The king never does most of the things that he is 
legally entitled to do. The prime minister and the cabinet do 
any number of things for which they have no legal warrant. 
Many ministers bearing official titles do not perform the duties 
suggested by these titles, for example, the first lord of the treas- 
ury is rarely a lord and though nominally the ultimate head of 
the financial system, has in fact nothing to do with finance, 
and the chancellor of the exchequer, the real minister of finance, 
is not a chancellor and the ''exchequer" of which he once was 
the chancellor was abolished eighty years ago. There are 
" boards " the members of which never sit, such as the Board 
of Education and the Local Government Board. Parliament 
has on its order book many rules which are never enforced, 
such as concern strangers and the publishing of debates,^ and 

1 Harry Furniss, the caricature artist of Punch, once said that in his day 
parhament was so full of red tape that a man might have a seat in the re- 



626 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

though unable to provide room in the chamber of the House of 
Commons for more than 350 members has lately increased its 
membership to 707. In some ways most interesting of all is the 
survival of the old Anglo-Norman phrases used in the formal 
procedure of the houses. In assenting to a bill the king still 
uses the words Le Roy le veult and when a bill is ready to be 
sent from the Commons to the Lords, the phrase is Soit bailie 
aux seigneurs.^ Privileges for which members fought and 
suffered in the past have, with the decline of monarchy, lost 
all their meaning; forms of procedure, which once had real 
significance are now mere matters of clerical routine ; and many 
incidents and practices continue to survive to-day* for no other 
reason than the Britisher's love of precedent and dislike of 
change. Yet it is the existence of just these little peculiarities, 
these unexpected contradictions between theory and practice, 
and these differences between the outward seeming and the actual 
fact that gives to the study of the British constitution a great 
deal of its fascination and charm. 

427. The King. — George V sits upon the throne of Eng- 
land by virtue of the Act of Settlement of 1701 (§ 287, at end), 
and had he no sons his daughter could succeed him at his death 
and exercise as queen of England all the royal powers. He 
became king in 1910 immediately on the death of his father, 
Edward VII, for Great Britain legally cannot be without a 
king for an instant of time, but his coronation did not follow 
for more than a year. Theoretically and legally he has wide 
powers, both at home and over the self-governing dominions, 
but actually he can of his own independent will perform no 

porter's gallerv for an obscure journal that had ceased to exist for thirty 
years, while prominent papers were given no seat at all. 

1 Should the king ever veto a bill, as is never likely to be the case, he 
would express his dissent in the phrase Le Roy s'avisera. Other phrases 
are A ceste bille avesque des ameyidemens les seigniews sont assent us or A ccs 
amendemens les communes sont assenms. Assent to a private bill is phrased 
Soit fait comme il est desiri and to a petition of right (as in 1628, § 244) 
Soit droit fait comm.e il est desire. Assent to a money bill reads Le Roy 
remer^ie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult. It is odd 
that Lords and Commons should spell '' seign[i]eurs'' differently. 



THE KING 627 

constitutional functions whatever — all must be done on the 
advice of his ministers. Many things are carried out in his 
name : he summons, prorogues, and dissolves parliament, 
makes and unmakes ministries, appoints all the highest officials 
in church and state, authorizes the spending of public money, 
assigns justices to their circuits, grants charters, confers honors, 
declares war, makes peace, signs treaties. All these things 
are done through one or other of his ministers and by means of 
certain prescribed forms, such as an order in council, a royal 
warrant countersigned by a royal official, a writ, a proclama- 
tion, a letters patent or other similar document issued under 
the great seal. In each case some one of his ministers is respon- 
sible, and that is what is meant by the statement " The king 
can do no wrong." Were wrong done it would be the minister 
and not the king who would be to blame. 

Theoretically, the king is present at every court where justice 
is done, actually he is never there, though justice is always done 
in his name. Theoretically, he is present at every sitting of 
parliament, though actually he is present only when he comes in 
state to the House of Lords in order to exercise his prerogative 
of opening and proroguing parliament.^ He never goes to the 
House of Commons and the independence of that body is so far 
preserved that it is a breach of order even to mention his name 
in a speech with a view to affect legislation.^ He is exempt 
from all taxation, except an income tax on his private purse, 
because theoretically the revenue of the realm is his. His 
household and his royal residences are possessed of certain 
privileges in matters of suit and arrest, which cannot be en- 
croached upon unless expressly waived by the Board of Green 

'^ 1 King Edward as Prince of Wales frequently attended both houses. 
After he became king he never went to the House of Commons. But he 
personally opened each of his nine parliaments and he, not the lord high 
chancellor, read the speech from the throne. 

2 Once when King Edward, annoyed because of certain criticisms directed 
.against him by some of the labor members in parliament, canceled their 
invitations to a royal function he was charged by the labor party with 
trying to influence members of parliament. 



628 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Cloth, the body that manages the royal household. Theoreti- 
cally he owns all British soil, though he would have trouble if he 
tried to establish his title, and he owns the beds of all tidal rivers 
and all the shore of the British Isles between high and low 
water marks. He also owns all lands newly discovered by any 
of his subjects — as, for example, the North Pole, had an Eng- 
lishman discovered it, — and he has the right to claim all whales 
thrown up on the coast of the United Kingdom, which are 
divided between him and the queen, he taking the head and she 
the tail. 

Constitutionally speaking, the king is so bound up with the 
British system of government that to abolish monarchy in 
England would lead to endless confusion. It would also affect 
the relations with the outlying dominions and dependencies, 
for the royal office is the only permanent feature of the British 
Empire. As an institution the king is therefore one of the most 
important and necessary parts of the British system. But as a 
person he stands in a different position. In that capacity he 
can exercise influence but not power or authority, and the ex- 
tent of his influence is likely to vary with his character and 
strength of will. Queen Victoria, by acknowledgment of all, 
had a very definite influence upon governmental policy ; ^ King 
Edward's influence, as has already been noted (§ 387), lay 
chiefly in the field of foreign relations ; while that of George V, 
owing to the faithfulness with which he has performed his 
recognized duties — ceremonial and social, — and to the sym- 

1 Several instances of this may be given. In 1851 the queen in a memo- 
randum to Lord Palmerston insisted that drafts of all dispatches should 
be submitted to her in sufficient time for her to read them and that they 
should not be altered after they had received her sanction. We are told 
that the bill disestablishing the Irish Church (1869 was probably saved 
by the queen's intervention, though she personally cisliked it, because she 
believed it expressed the will of the country. We know also that in 1871, 
Gladstone, unable to obtain the passage of the bill abolishing purchase of 
commissions in the army, advised the queen to make use of her prerogative 
and abolish the purchase system by royal warrant. This the queen did, 
revoking the warrant of 1683 recognizing the practice and issuing another, 
doing away with it. 



THE PRIVY COUNCIL 629 

pathetic interest which he has displayed in the work and wel- 
fare of all his people, has increased very much popular respect 
for the monarchy. 

The king of England must be a Protestant, and until the 
accession of George V made a declaration against the Roman 
Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation — that is, the con- 
version of the elements of bread and wine into the body and 
blood of Christ, and against the ''invocation or adoration" of 
the Virgin Mary as " superstitious and idolatrous." This 
declaration gave offense to the king's Roman Catholic sub- 
jects, and efforts were made at the accession of King Edward 
in 1901 to change it, but agreement could not then be reached 
upon the proper wording. The matter was taken up at the ac- 
cession of King George in 1910, and by act of parliament the 
obnoxious parts were struck out.^ The king can freely leave 
the country at any time he desires, but if he goes in his royal 
capacity he must be accompanied by a cabinet minister. Other- 
wise he travels under an assumed name, that is, incognito. King 
Edward frequently went abroad in this way. 

428. The Privy Council. — The Privy Council, which in 
origin is older than parliament, used to be the king's advisory 
body, acting in conjunction with him as the executive head 
of the government, but now its place as adviser of the crown 
has been acquired by the cabinet. It is composed of as many 
natural born or naturalized British subjects as the king de- 
sires to summon, and among them are always the members of 
the cabinet, who in order to hold office must be privy coun- 
cilors. The number is undefined, but at present is nearly 300, 
peers and commoners. In nearly all cases membership is an 
honor, which carries with it no duties. Except on special occa- 
sions, such as occur at the beginning of a reign, when all the mem- 
bers assemble to hear the new king's first message, the whole 

* Under the law of 1910, the sovereign simply declares that he is a faith- 
ful Protestant and that he will, according to the true intent of the enact- 
ments which secure the Protestant succession to the throne, uphold and 
maintain the said enactments to the best of his power according to law. 



630 THE GOVERNMENT OP THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

body never meets. Membership carries with it the title of 
" Right Honorable " and the privilege of invitation (with wives 
and unmarried daughters) to royal balls, concerts, and analogous 
state functions. The members, when in official attendance, 
wear a very smart diplomatic costume of blue and gold, with a 
cocked hat, an obligation that made trouble with his party 
for John Burns, labor member for Battersea, when as presi- 
dent of the Local Government Board (1905-1914) he became a 
privy councilor and a member of the cabinet. 

For ordinary business the council meets ten or twelve times a 
year and there are usually present the president of the council, 
the clerk,! and two or three members of the cabinet. Only 
in great emergencies, such, for example, as an occasion involv- 
ing a declaration of war, would the king invite to these smaller 
meetings members of the opposition in parliament, for it is one 
of the unwritten laws of the constitution that the king takes 
advice only of his constitutional advisers — that is, the mem- 
bers of the ministry in office. The most important work of the 
Privy Council is done by its committees, of which there are 
many. First, there are the standing committees for the af- 
fairs of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, for as we 
shall see later (§ 435) these islands are not governed by parlia- 
ment but by the king in council. Secondly, there are certain 
committees provided for by statute, of which the only one 
needing specially to be mentioned is the judicial committee, 
which is the supreme court of appeal for all the colonial pos- 
sessions of the British Empire. This committee is one of the 
great institutions of the British system ; upon it sit some of the 
most eminent of Canadian, South African, and Australian 
judges, and its members have to deal not only with English 
law but with Dutch, French, Hindoo, and Mohammedan law 
also. This committee has been in the past of the greatest 

1 The title ' clerk' is much more important in England than it is in America. 
The offices of Clerk of the Privy Council, Clerk of the House of Commons, 
and Clerk of the Parliament are held by very distingui-hed ni.'n. 



THE KING'S MINISTERS AND DEPARTMENTS 631 

possible service in settling constitutional questions arising 
under the acts by which Canada was formed into a dominion 
(1867), Australia into a commonwealth (1900), and South Africa 
into a union (1909), for sitting in Westminster, thousands of 
miles away, it is free from local prejudice and party influence. 

There are other committees, less formal, appointed from 
time to time to look into miscellaneous matters. Two such 
committees, for agriculture and education, were erected into 
regular departments some years ago (1889, 1900) and are now 
known as the Board of Agriculture and the Board of Educa- 
tion. When the council sits formally as the king in council its 
decrees are known as orders in council, which are executive acts 
of the highest authority, employed to put into operation a parlia- 
mentary statute, to summon the reserves and the militia to arms, 
to prorogue parliament, to provide for the government of the 
crown colonies, to confirm or disallow the acts of colonial legis- 
latures, to grant charters, to give effect to treaties, and the 
like. When it is desired to give an order wide publicity, it is 
issued in the form of a proclamation. 

429. The King's Ministers and Departments. — The king 
has certain high officials of state and many subordinate officials 
for the performance of executive and administrative business 
and the carrying on of the government of the United Kingdom. 
They may be divided into two classes, temporary and perma- 
nent. In the first class are the highest officials — heads of de- 
partments, whose position is political and who change whenever 
a -government is overthrown and a new government comes in. 
In that respect they are similar to the members of the presi- 
dent's cabinet in the United States. Immediately under them 
are parliamentary subordinates or under-secretaries, who also 
change with the government. In the second class are those 
officials, whose tenure is permanent, whose interests are purely 
administrative, and whose lives are spent in the government 
offices in Whitehall and elsewhere. They are the secretaries 
and clerks who perform, ably and efficiently, the departmental 



632 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

duties assigned them and who take no part in poHtics or parlia- 
ment. 

The most important ministers and departments of the crown 
are as follows : 

The Lord High Chancellor. He is the oldest of all the king's 
ministers in service, the principal adviser of the crown, and the 
keeper of the great seal. By time-honored custom he has ac- 
quired the right to sit on the woolsack in the House of Lords 
and to exercise there some of the functions assigned to the 
speaker in the House of Commons. But as he may be a com- 
moner and not a peer, he is in no sense the presiding officer of 
that august body (see § 431). Though the chancellor has lost 
many of his former duties as head of the Chancery Court, he 
still has an important place in the High Court of Justice and 
presides over the judicial committee of the Privy Council.^ 

The Treasury. Formerly the Treasury was a deliberative 
board made up of the first lord, the chancellor of the exchequer, 
and three junior lords, who had regular meetings and kept 
minutes. But now the first lord has gone into politics and is 
usually the prime minister, the junior lords have also gone into 
politics and are to-day government " whips," performing very 
important duties connected with the business of the House of 
Commons (§ 430), and only the chancellor of the exchequer 
is left, as a kind of second lord of the Treasury, to serve as 
minister of finance. He holds no board meetings, for there is 
no board to meet, because he stands alone with his staff of 
permanent secretaries and clerks. He scrutinizes and con- 
firms the financial demands of the various departments, makes 

1 The present lord high chancellor, Sir F. Smith, was raised to the peer- 
age as Lord Birkenhead, in order that he might take part in the debates of 
the House of Lords. As keeper of the great seal the chancellor is supposed 
never to take the seal out of the kingdom or to leave it oiit of his custody. 
Literally enforced, this would mean that the chancellor must never leave the 
kingdom. Once when Lord Haldane went to America, a commission was ap- 
pointed to take charge of the seal, but even this was thought to be uncon- 
stitutional. Lord Birkenhead, however, broke through this custom, when 
he went to Paris as adviser of Lloyd George at the peace conference, with- 
out leaving even a commission behind him. 



THE KING'S MINISTERS AND DEPARTMENTS 633 

up the budget, recommends new or increased taxation, and de- 
fends his estimates of revenue and expenditure before the 
House of Commons. He must be a commoner, because the 
House of Lords has nothing to do with money bills except to 
pass them. 

The Admiralty. The Admiralty Board, unlike that of the 
Treasury, still sits as a deliberative body. As the Treasury, 
through the chancellor of the exchequer, wields the powers and 
functions of the old Lord High Treasurer, so the Admiralty, 
as a board, wields the powers and functions of the old Lord 
High Admiral. Remodeled in 1904, this board now consists 
of a first lord, four sea lords, and a civil lord. The first lord, 
who is always a navy man, is in reality a secretary of the navy 
and is held responsible by parliament for the conduct of his 
department, while the others serve as his advisers. They have 
administrative duties also, for the oversight of naval affairs is 
distributed among the sea lords and the civil lord. 

The War Office. The War Office has in the past undergone 
many important changes, the earlier phases of which need not 
concern us here. In 1904, after long consideration, the office of 
commander-in-chief was abolished and the control of the army 
was intrusted to an Army Council, similar in form to the Ad- 
miralty Board, presided over by the secretary of state for war 
and consisting of six leading army officers, one of which is the 
chief of staff. The secretary of state for war, though histori- 
cally and constitutionally very different from the first lord of 
the Admiralty — because he is a secretary of state, and not the 
head of a board, — is in fact very similar in obligations and func- 
tions to that official — a secretary of war as the other is a secre- 
tary of the navy. He is usually a civilian, and Lord Kitchener 
was the first military officer to hold the position. 

The Secretariat. There are five principal secretaries of state, 
one each for home affairs, foreign affairs, war, the colonies, and 
India. Legally, these five ministers perform the duties of one 
office — that of his majesty's principal secretary of state, — and 



634 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

whenever by act of parliament their duties are increased, they 
are rarely referred to by name, business being assigned to them 
collectively, apparently on the supposition that each is com- 
petent to do the work of any of the others. Actually, however, 
they constitute five distinct departments, the duties of which 
are well understood, and they are served by permanent staffs 
of secretaries, assistants, clerks, and other officials, housed 
each in its own quarters in Whitehall. 

The Foreign Office looks after foreign affairs and has control 
of protectorates, wherever found. The Colonial Office has in 
its hands the management of those parts of the Empire that 
are designated " crown colonies," as contrasted with dominions 
and protectorates. The India Office is concerned with India, 
and its secretary differs from the others in having an advisory 
council — the Council of India, consisting of from ten to four- 
teen salaried members, two of whom are native Indians, — which 
is a consultative body in all matters not requiring urgency or 
secrecy. Except in recommending changes in the government 
of India and embodying such changes in a bill to be introduced 
into parliament (§ 424) > neither the secretary nor parliament 
has much direct part in Indian control, such being left to the 
viceroy and the officials in India itself (§ 438). Lastly, we have 
The Home Office, under whose direction is a vast and somewhat 
miscellaneous body of domestic activities. The home secre- 
tary is the chief channel of communication between the king and 
his subjects of the United Kingdom, he receives addresses and 
petitions, has charge of naturalization and extradition, man- 
ages the police (except those of the City of London), regulates 
factories, mines, collieries, inebriates, and burial grounds, 
inspects reformatories, industrial schools, and prisons, and 
even keeps watch over vivisection and cruelty to animals. 
Under him are not only the usual departmental officials but 
a great many special commissioners and inspectors also. 

Boards. In addition there are many boards, so called, though 
each is controlled by a single official — its president, — and 



THE CABINET 635 

never meets as a board. These are The Board of Works, which 
has charge of the construction and maintenance of parks, 
palaces, and many pubHc buildings ; The Board of Trade, which 
supervises everything that concerns trade and locomotion by 
land and sea and under which is Trinity House, a famous and 
ancient institution, which looks after navigation, lighthouses, 
buoys, and beacons ; The Local Government Board, which has 
general oversight of the poor law, public health, and other 
local government matters ; The Board of Agriculture, which 
has to do with commons, allotments, drainage, forestry, horti- 
culture, fisheries, the muzzling of dogs, and contagious diseases 
among animals ; and lastly. The Board of Education, which has 
charge of all schools that receive public aid. 

The Post Office. The post office is one of the most important 
of all the public departments, and because it brings in a large 
revenue to the state is under the control of the Treasury. But 
it is more than a source of income, it is a great administering 
organization as well. Its duties are carefully prescribed by 
statute, and the postmaster-general, who is the parliamentary 
head, has comparatively little discretion except in minor matters. 
He is in fact the acting manager of a great business, with the 
secretary of the department as the man in immediate charge, 
and he is accountable to parliament for his administration. 
Under his direction are the transmission of all mail matter, 
including the parcels post ; savings bank business, which allows 
deposits of a shilling and upwards and pays interest; postal 
orders and money orders ; postal telegraph and telephones. 
Through its savings department the post office has built up a 
very elaborate life insurance and annuity business. 

430. The Cabinet. — " A certain number of these high of- 
ficers of state constitute the ' cabinet ' and those with others 
are said to constitute the ' ministry,' neither of which is known 
to the law." Thus wrote Maitland in 1888, and what he said 
then is largely true to-day. The cabinet is not provided for 
by any statute and never has received formal recognition as a 



636 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

part of the British constitution,^ its members are not paid for 
their services as cabinet ministers, its meetings are irregular 
and unscheduled, no record is kept of its business or discus- 
sions, its proceedings are never published, and it has no powers 
that are legally defined. Yet it is the most powerful executive 
and legislative influence in Great Britain to-day. At its head is 
the prime minister, who occupies a position more dominating 
than that of any other of the king's subjects and is selected by 
the king either because of his ability to lead the political party 
to which he belongs, which must be the majority party in 
parliament, or because of the public opinion of the country at 
large. 

The prime minister selects his colleagues, though the king 
actually appoints them, and he can call for their resignations 
in the same way. His resignation has a little history of its 
own. Before 1832 he rarely felt obliged to resign because of 
an adverse vote in parliament ; after 1832 and until 1867 he 
would have resigned only in case the adverse vote was formal, 
that is to say, a test vote which showed on the part of the 
members of parliament a lack of confidence in him as their 
leader; after 1867 and until 1906 he would have been expected 
to resign if any vote in parliament went against him ; and 
since 1906 he has resigned, even with a parliamentary majority 
in his favor, when it was evident that the sentiment of the 
country was against him. 

The officers of state who are always in the cabinet are the 
secretaries of state, the first lord of the Treasury, the lord high 
chancellor, the chancellor of the exchequer, the first lord of the 
Admiralty, and usually the lord privy seal. The prime minister 
himself has commonly held the office of first lord of the Treas- 
ury, but Gladstone was chancellor of the exchequer and Salis- 

1 Official recognition of the prime minister was first given in 1906, when 
by royal warrant his place in processions and ceremonial functions was 
fixed as fourth in the list, after the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord 
High Chancellor, and the Archbishop of York. Consequently Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman is sometimes spoken of as the ' first' prime minister. 



THE CABINET 637 

bury secretary of state for foreign affairs. As to the remain- 
ing members practice varies somewhat, but among them one is 
almost sure to find the president of the council, the presidents of 
the Local Government Board, Board of Trade, Board of Educa- 
tion, and Board of Agriculture, the attorney-general, post- 
master-general, and the chief secretaries for Scotland and 
Ireland. Altogether there may be twent}^ or more in the cabinet 
and fifty or more in the ministry. The legal standing of all 
these officials depends not on their position as members of the 
cabinet or ministry but on their membership in the Privy Coun- 
cil, while their salaries are paid them for their services not as 
cabinet ministers but as officials under government. 

In discussing the cabinet two questions arise which have never 
been fully answered. How far is the prime minister expected 
to keep in touch with the departmental work of his colleagues ; 
and how far must the cabinet act as a unit? As regards the 
first question, it is now generally conceded that each member 
of a cabinet who is the head of a department ^ may conduct his 
affairs in his own way and may even consult with the king 
quite independently of the prime minister. Should, however, 
differences arise between departments affecting policy the 
prime minister is expected to reconcile them. To the second the 
best answer is that of Sir Courtenay Ilbert, " The extent to 
which a member of the cabinet should, in the public interest, 
subordinate his convictions to those of his chief or his col- 
leagues is a matter for the individual conscience. If the strain 
is too severe, the cabinet may shed some of its members as in 
1867 and again in 1903.^ But generally speaking, it is considered 
to be the duty of members of the cabinet, and of members of 
the government who are outside the cabinet, to present a united 

1 There is generally in the cabinet an unpaid member without an office, 
"without portfolio" as it is called. The president of the council and the 
lord privy seal have almost no duties, and the chancellor of the Duchy of 
Lancaster, whom Lord Bryce once called the "maid of all work" of the 
cabinet, bears a title that has long since lost its meaning. 

2 John Burns resigned from the cabinet in 1914 and Sir Edward Carson 
and Arthur Henderson during the war. 



638 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

front in dealing with all the more important questions that come 
before parliament." ^ 

The strength of the cabinet is to be found not only in its es- 
tablished position as the central feature of the government, 
but also in the peculiar position which it occupies in that gov- 
ernment. It is executive in character, in that it controls and 
guides the legal executive (the king and Privy Council), and it 
has among its members the chiefs of the great executive de- 
partments. At the same time its members sit in the legislature, 
that is, in parliament, and are responsible to it. Herein lies the 
difference between the British and the American systems. The 
members of the president's cabinet in the United States do not 
sit in Congress ; but every one of the king's ministers must have 
a seat in one or other of the houses of parliament. Two re- 
sults follow : (1) these ministers are able in person to present 
their policies and defend the administration of their depart- 
ments and (2) they are able to control the party machinery 
and hold their followers, that is, the majority, in allegiance. 
When we remember that the prime minister is usually the first 
lord of the Treasury, we can understand how it came about that 
his " whips," or agents for the management of the party ma- 
chinery in the interest of legislation, are the secretary of the 
Treasury and the junior lords, none of whom perform any Treas- 
ury business and whose official titles give no clue to their real 
work.2 They are the ones who under instruction from the 
prime minister arrange the program of legislation, see that 
it is carried out, and " whip in " the members, that is, notify 
them when voting is to take place and how to vote.^ Some- 
times members are allowed to vote as they please, but not 
often. They are generally expected to support the prime 

1 Ilbert, Parliament, p. 150. 

^ An excellent account of the work of the " whips' is given in Graham, 
The Mother of Parliaments, pp. 254-258. 

3 It is easy to see that with only 350 seats and 707 members the benches 
of the house cannot accommodate all, and that when a vote is taken scores 
of members are certain to be absent, scattered about in different parts of 
the building. 



THE HOUSE OF LORDS 639 

minister or to oppose him, according to their party affiHa- 
tions. 

431. The House of Lords. — The House of Lords, which is 
commonly designated the second chamber, is composed of about 
680 members, including royal princes (3), archbishops (2), 
dukes (19), marquesses (29), earls (121), viscounts (58), bish- 
ops (24), barons (377), Scottish peers (16), and Irish peers 
(28). There are also four judicial life peers, whose duties will 
be explained below. There are a number of bishops in England 
who have no seats in the House of Lords, for the bishop is a 
spiritual lord, who sits not because of his bishopric but because 
of a summons from the king. He differs from a temporal lord 
in that he is not a peer, can sit only as long as he holds his bish- 
opric, and cannot transmit his privilege to his heirs. There 
are three groups of temporal peers : first and by far the largest 
number are those who are hereditary peers of the United King- 
dom, entitled to transmit their titles and privileges to their heirs ; 
secondly, there are sixteen representative peers from Scotland, 
chosen by their brother peers there for each parliament, and 
twenty-eight from Ireland, chosen there in the same way for 
life ; and, lastly, there are four judicial peers, or lords of appeal 
in ordinary — one Scottish and usually one Irish, expert lawyers 
all of them, — who sit to hear appeals from the common law courts. 
They are created peers for life, for their judgments are the judg- 
ments of the House of Lords sitting in its judicial capacity. At 
their head is the lord high chancellor, and to their number are 
added such hereditary peers as have held high judicial office. 

The lord high chancellor, who is the speaker of the House of 
Lords, sits on the historic woolsack, a large red cushion stuffed 
with wool, without arms or back, but with a central back-rest, 
which has no platform but rests upon the floor of the house, 
in front of the royal thrones. As the keeper of the great seal, 
an office now always held by the lord high chancellor, may be a 
commoner, the woolsack is technically outside the limits of the 
house, so that when the chancellor is a peer and wishes to take 



640 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

part in debate he must step forward within the precincts of the 
house and occupy his place as a peer. As speaker he has but 
few powers : he has nothing to do with debate or the main- 
tenance of order, the peers never address their remarks to him 
but to their fellows, and while his advice would be listened to 
with respect it need not be followed and he has no power to de- 
cide questions of procedure or to control in any way the con- 
duct of the house. The business of the House of Lords is much 
less complicated than that of the House of Commons, sessions 
are shorter, lasting sometimes only a few minutes, and attend- 
ance is much less obligatory. Frequently the red benches 
are very empty. When the house is sitting in its judicial ca- 
pacity, hearing a case on appeal, the half dozen lawyer-peers, 
who are the only ones present, sit about at the lower end, near 
the bar, in order to hear the addresses of counsel, who cannot 
speak within the house. 

The question of the reform of the House of Lords, which has 
been under debate for many years, is still unanswered. The 
Parliament Act of 1911 removed the greatest grievance, for it 
made it impossible for the House of Lords to block the legis- 
lative policy of the House of Commons, but it did not touch the 
question of who should be the members of the second chamber, 
or how they should be chosen. In 1917 a conference com- 
mittee, headed by Lord Bryce, wa3 appointed to consider the 
recasting of the existing constitution of the House of Lords. 
In 1918 this conference made a report recommending a system 
of election, in part by the House of Commons and in part by a 
joint standing committee of both houses, according to which 
the hereditary feature of the present house would be eliminated 
and membership be placed on a representative basis. According 
to this recommendation peers, bishops, and the clergy gen- 
erally, as well as commoners, would be eligible for election. 
But as yet no action has been taken on this report. 

432. House of Commons. — The House of Commons con- 
sists of 707 members, elected, under the conditions laid down by 



HOUSE OF COMMONS 641 

the Reform Act of 1918, by about 21,000,000 voters, of which 
number more than 8,000,000 are women (§§ 394, 395). The 
idea that each member should represent a single electoral dis- 
trict, which was put in practice by the Distribution Act of 1885, 
has now been discarded, and by the Act of 1918 the old method 
of representation by boroughs and counties has again been 
adopted with some modifications. The House of Commons 
sits for five years, unless in the meantime the prime minister 
appeals to the country, as he is likely to do, in which case a 
new election would have to be held. The house must assemble 
every year for three reasons : first, in order to pass the Army 
Bill providing for the maintenance of the standing army, which 
technically exists only from year to year ; secondly, to renew the 
Ballot Act, which provides for secret ballot in parliamentary elec- 
tions and which, for some strange reason, remains in force for one 
year only ; and thirdly, to vote the annual supply to the crown. ^ 

The powers of parliament are threefold : 

1. Supervisory, the oversight of administration as conducted 
by ministers and departments. This power is not much exer- 
cised to-day, but it is still possessed, for parliament can at any 
time call a minister to account. 

1 Originally the king was expected to meet his expenses from his own 
resources, but in 1660 Charles II gave up all his feudal claims (§ 55) and in 
1760 George III gave up nearly all the crown lands to the nation. After 
the latter date parliament came into control of nearly all the old hereditary 
revenues of the crown. In return it granted George III a fixed amount 
for the expenses of himself and his household, known as the 'civil list,' 
which in 1777 amounted to £900,000. The amount actually paid, however, 
came to more than this sum, for the extravagances of George III and George 
IV and the many public charges that were made against the civil list caused 
huge deficits that had to be met by parliament. Little by little the public 
charges were assumed by the government and the civil list reduced. Ed- 
ward VII received £470,000 and George V receives the same every year. 
Provision for other members of the royal family comes to £146,000 more. 
These sums seem large, yet it must be remembered that parliament made a 
very good bargain when it took over the crown lands in exchange for a civil 
list, for the income from these lands to-day amounts to more than the sum 
granted the king, £520,000 as over against £470,000. In addition the 
king receives about £87,000 from the Duchy of Lancaster and the Prince of 
Wales about £80,000 from the Duchy of Cornwall, the only royal lands now 
remaining in the hands of the crown. 



642 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

2. Inquisitorial, the investigation, through parhamentary 
committees, of matters of pubHc importance, a frequent activity 
that often leads to the framing and passing of bills. The re- 
ports of these committees, when printed, as they usually are, 
go into the Parliament Blue Books (so called from the color of 
their covers) and become very valuable sources of information. 

3. Legislative, the passing of laws, the most important 
business with "which parliament has to deal, and a function 
now controlled mainly by the House of Commons. 

Since 1832 British legislation has greatly changed. Whereas 
in the eighteenth century the acts passed were in the nature of 
local and private measures, such as the inclosing of commons, 
widening of roads, settling inheritances, and the divorcing of 
ill-mated couples, after 1832 it took the form of comprehensive 
laws, laying down general principles and leaving the details to 
be worked out by departments and boards, to whom new powers 
were intrusted. Such laws are the Reform Acts, the Poor Law 
Act, the Municipal Corporations Act, and the Local Govern- 
ment Acts. These are real acts of legislation. But in the 
eighteenth century parliament scarcely legislated at all in the 
modern sense of the word, it administered, that is, looked after 
the details of government. Of course to-day it can, if it wants 
to, pass laws regarding very small matters, and it sometimes 
does, for, as Maitland says, parliament can do anything except 
prevent a successor from repealing the laws it has made ; but 
legislation about details, whether public or private, is not much 
in favor at the present time. 

The two most important persons in the House of Commons 
are the prime minister and the speaker. The greatly increased 
influence of the prime minister is due largely to the fact that 
government business, that is, measures which the prime minister 
and his colleagues originate, is not only given the right of way 
but is allowed a far greater amount of time than is granted to 
bills introduced by private. members. In this sense the prime 
minister may be said to control the legislative activity of the 



HOUSE OF COMMONS 643 

House of Commons. The influence of the speaker is due, in 
chief part, to the control which he exercises over the procedure 
of the House of Commons. The need of preventing too much 
debate, often intended merely to obstruct legislation, has brought 
into use certain devices for ending debate, first the *' closure," 
which, not proving adequate, has been followed by the "closure 
by compartments " or the " guillotine." These devices are de- 
signed to stop debate and amendment and bring a bill or some 
part of it to a vote. As the speaker, who is a non-partisan 
presiding officer, decides whether such devices can be used or 
not and as he is given large powers in cases of disorderly con- 
duct, his authority has become very great. As a recognition of 
this fact an order in council was issued in 1917 giving him a 
place in ceremonial functions ahead of all the peers, a proper 
social eminence for the one who presides over a legislative 
body as ancient, as venerable, and as powerful as the House of 
Commons. 

The speaker sits in a gorgeous chair at the end of a narrow but 
impressive room, high ceilinged and ornate, in which twelve 
rows of leather-cushioned benches, rising one above another, 
six to a side, extend facing each other down the length of the 
room. The plan is that of an English chapel and is modeled 
after the interior of St. Stephen's Chapel, in which the house 
sat for 300 years, until the building was burned down in 1834. 
It is admirably contrived for a two-party system, the govern- 
ment on one side and the opposition on the other, and is spec- 
ially suited for comparatively small numbers and informal de- 
bate. But it is not so well adapted to conditions as they are 
to-day, when there are many party groups and large numbers. 

In considering the business of the House of Commons, one must 
distinguish between a parliament, a session, and a sitting. A 
parliament includes a number of sessions, a session, many sit- 
tings. ^ A parliament ends with a dissolution, a session with a 
prorogation, a sitting with an adjournment. The first and 

* The longest session on rec(jrd lasted from March, 1893, to March, 1894. 



644 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

second are acts of the king, on the advice of his ministers, the 
third, the act of the House of Commons itself. 

Bills are usually introduced by the government, but certain 
times in the week are set aside for any business that private 
members may wish to bring forward. When a bill is intro- 
duced it is read by a clerk and there is no debate. This con- 
stitutes the first reading. On a given day it is read a second 
time, and then ensues considerable discussion for and against 
the principle involved. If the bill passes the second reading, 
it is taken up in the " committee of the whole house," which 
is merely the house without the speaker, sitting under a chair- 
man and governed by different rules of debate and procedure. 
If the bill is reported favorably out of committee, it passes to 
its third reading, and at this stage is likely to meet with a good 
deal of opposition, particularly if amendments have been 
added. In case the bill passes the third reading, it is sent to 
the House of Lords and there similarly dealt with. Should a 
bill originate in the House of Lords the same procedure would 
be followed in reverse order. When a bill has duly passed 
both houses, it is sent to the king for his assent, which is to-day 
a mere formality, sometimes given by lords commissioners 
who represent the crown, and sometimes by the king himself, 
though rarely. In either case it is given *' in full parliament,'* 
that is, in the House of Lords with the Commons present. In 
the progress of a bill through the houses the votes after the 
second and third readings or in committee are usually taken 
by means of a division, a method peculiar to the British parlia- 
ment. At the end of the debate the speaker or chairman in 
the House of Commons, or the chancellor in the House of Lords, 
puts the question and tries to determine from the volume of 
sound whether the a.yes or the noes have it, but frequently 
without success. If his decision is challenged a division is taken. 
The members file out of the chamber, passing into a lobby on 
the right if they wish to vote ** aye," and into one on the left if 
they wish to vote " no." The same procedure is followed in 



MUNICIPALITIES 645 

ascertaining the opinion of either house on any measure or 
motion, and sometimes the divisions are very frequent/ con- 
suming a great deal of time, more than does a roll call in an 
American legislature. 

After this brief view of the central government and adminis- 
tration, let us turn to the local system, to discover how far the 
local governments reflect the principles at work In the larger 
field. 

433. Municipalities. — The first of the local systems to be 
reformed was that of the boroughs or municipalities. In 1833, 
immediately after the passage of the first Reform Bill, a com- 
mittee was appointed to Investigate the borough governments, 
and it reported such a bewildering variety of local constitu- 
tions and such a chaos of inefficiency, mismanagement, and 
corruption that, even though It erred in stressing too much the 
abuses it found, it did succeed in startling parliament into action. 
As a result the famous Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 
was passed to remedy the situation. This act and subsequent 
amendments in all their essential features were embodied in the 
Municipal Corporations Act of 1882, and the simple rule was 
laid down that the burgesses, that Is, the people of a borough, 
should have the right to manage their own affairs by means 
of a local body, properly elected. By the application of this 
rule democratic government, everywhere essentially the same, 
was introduced into the municipal system of Great Britain. 
All the old charters and privileges were abolished, and by the 
Act of 1882 a great municipal code was created under which 
the larger towns in the United Kingdom are governed to-day. 

The basis of the present system Is the charter, granted by 
the king, with the advice of the Privy Council, on petition of 
the residents of the borough. In reaUty, the cabinet is re- 
sponsible for the charter, which must be issued according to 
the conditions of the Act of 1882. By this charter provision is 
1 In 1909 the House of Commons divided 918 times. 



646 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

made for a governing body — mayor (lord mayor in Liverpool, 
Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, York, and Leeds), aldermen, 
and councilors, — elected on a fairly broad franchise by both men 
and women and forming a government not unlike that of an 
American city, though probably with more independence than 
some of them, because neither the crown nor any department of 
government can interfere in their affairs. The Act of 1882 is 
the ' charter of liberties ' for the cities of the United Kingdom. 

434. Counties, Districts, and Parishes. — After the passage 
of the Act of 1882, followed closely by the Reform Act of 1884, 
it was evident to all that changes must be made in the govern- 
ment of the remaining local bodies of the kingdom, and it 
followed naturally that representative democracy, which had 
become the basis of both municipal and central government, 
should become the foundation of parish and county govern- 
ment as well. The most amazing feature of the situation is 
that the old conditions had been allowed to remain as long 
as they had, and yet it is doubtful if the reform would have 
come so quickly had it not been for the Liberal Unionists led 
by Chamberlain, who in 1886 (§ 374) allied themselves with 
the Conservatives, because of the Home Rule policy of Glad- 
stone, and as the price of their support demanded radical 
reforms. 

There were four great evils in local government as it existed 
before 1888. First, county government was in the hands of the 
justices of the peace — the local gentry or country squires, — 
who in no way represented the people of the locality ; and 
parish government was in the hands of local vestries, who 
formed a veritable oligarch}-. Secondh^, the areas of local 
administration were very confusing. There were the counties, 
the old ecclesiastical parishes, the common law parishes, and the 
poor law parishes. There was the poor law union, made up of a 
group of poor law parishes, which did not coincide with the 
county. There were school districts, highway districts, and 
burial districts, all differing in their boundaries. Thirdly, 



COUNTIES, DISTRICTS, AND PARISHES 647 

there was a chaos of organization : different authorities, such as 
town councils, boards of guardians, highway boards, school 
boards, lighting inspectors, overseers, and the like ; different 
dates of elections, different systems of voting, different tenures 
of office, different qualifications for candidates. Fourthly, 
there was a chaos of finance, that is, of the way in which local 
rates or taxes were paid. Goschen, chancellor of the exchequer 
at the time, said, " Every one knows that the first reform needed 
is to consolidate all rates and have one demand note for all rates 
and a single authority for levying the rate and distributing 
the proceeds among such authorities as have power to call 
for contributions. It is astonishing that this should not have 
been done already. Let me give you my personal experience. 
I myself received in one year 87 demand notes on an aggregate 
valuation of £1000. One parish alone sent me eight rate papers 
for an aggregate amount of 12s. 4d. The intricacies of im- 
perial finance are simplicity itself compared with this local 
financial chaos." 

To bring order out of all this confusion was the work of two 
great acts of local reform, the acts of 1888 and 1894, the first 
reforming the government of the counties, the second of the 
parishes. Their object was to extend to the counties and par- 
ishes the self-governing powers already conferred on the bor- 
oughs. 'By the Act of 1888 the administrative duties of the 
justices of the peace in the counties were taken away and in- 
trusted to county councils, composed of members chosen di- 
rectly by the rate-payers. London (except the City was 
erected into an administrative county by itself, with its own 
county council, a very impressive body of 154 members, which 
has authority over a wide area, including parts of Middlesex, 

1 The City of London, within the Bars, an area of about a square mile in 
extent, is the oldest institution of its kind in England, and is still governed 
according to its ancient forms. The County of London is 116 square miles 
in extent, with a radius of about 6 miles from Charing Cross. The City of 
London has an annual income of £250,000, the County spends £12,000,000 
a year. 



648 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Kent, and Surrey. By the Act of 1894, all parishes (towns or 
villages) with more than 300 inhabitants were to have a parish 
council, elected by all qualified inhabitants, and all parishes 
smaller in size, unless they specially demanded a council, were 
to be governed through parish meetings made up of as many of 
the qualified inhabitants as cared to attend. 

Between the county councils and the parish councils a third 
council was established for areas known as urban or rural 
sanitary districts, composed of groups of parishes. These dis- 
trict councils are popularly elected and have extensive authority 
in such matters as highways, sewers, and drains, removal of 
rubbish, infectious diseases, water supply, and to some extent 
education and the poor law. These district authorities are 
extremely important bodies and have done much to improve 
public health and sanitation, while their control of roads and 
highways, which formerly lay with the inefficient parishes, is a 
step in the direction of a national road organization and policy. 
The appointment of a Road Board in 1910, for the purpose of 
improving the facilities for road traffic, was another step for- 
ward. Probably some day Great Britain will have a Board of 
Roads similar to the Board of Agriculture, the president of which 
will have ministerial responsibility. 

With the exception of an hereditary House of Lords and 
of the City of London, the British institutions of government 
are everywhere on a representative and democratic basis. 
House of Commons, borough councils, county councils, dis- 
trict councils, and parish councils are all elected by universal 
suffrage. Class rule has been abolished, as far as the law 
and the constitution are concerned, and the only quarter in 
which privilege still lingers is the sphere of local justice, where 
the magistrates or justices of the peace are still occasionally 
men without legal training, though no longer drawn, as 
used to be the case, exclusively from the land-owning classes. 
It is likely that in time the qualifications for a justice of the 
peace will be based upon a knowledge of law. When that 



THE SELF-GOVERNING DOMINIONS 649 

stage Is reached British administration will be in the hands 
of bodies that are directly or indirectly representative of the 
will of the nation, and British justice will be in the hands of 
trained lawyers. This combination of representative popular 
government and a trained and independent judiciary is a factor 
of significance in the British constitution of to-day. 

435. Government Overseas. — As we have already seen 
(§ 399) the British Empire is composed of a great variety of 
parts : the self-governing dominions, including India ; the 
crown colonies in three groups ; the protectorates ; and the 
Channel Islands, Isle of Man, and Ascension Island, which 
stand apart by themselves. The Channel Islands, which are 
the last remnant of the old Angevin dominion in France, and 
the Isle of Man, which was formerly in private hands but was 
bought by the crown in 1765, are controlled by committees of 
the Privy Council (§ 428). Each of these islands governs 
itself after ancient and primitive forms. The Channel Islands 
are divided into two 'bailiwicks,' in each of which is a lieutenant- 
governor appointed by the crown, and a representative legis- 
lature called the States ; the Isle of Man has a single governor 
and a legislative council appointed by the crown, and a repre- 
sentative assembly or House of Keys, elected by the male prop- 
erty owners and property holders in the four towns and six 
* sheadings ' or counties. Ascension Island in the South At- 
lantic is under the control of the Admiralty, because it is only a 
naval station, with batteries and storehouses and a population 
of but 180. 

436. The Self-Governing Dominions. — The five self-gov- 
erning dominions are the Dominion of Canada, the Federal 
Commonwealth of Australia, the Union of South Africa, the 
Dominion of New Zealand, and the Colony of Newfoundland. 
Each of these is a state, so large, powerful, progressive, and 
wealthy as to rival other states of the world and so important 
as to obtain (with the exception of New^foundland and the 



650 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

addition of India) independent membership in the League of 
Nations. Each of these states has almost complete control 
of its own affairs, and except for a governor-general appointed 
by the crown is practically supreme within its own borders. 

The Dominion of Canada is composed of nine provinces : 
Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, 
British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Alberta, and Sas- 
katchewan. The governor-general is usually an English peer, 
once indeed of the royal blood, and though named by the king 
and sent out from England is, as executive head of the govern- 
ment, as free from imperial interference as if he had been born 
and appointed in Canada. He selects his own cabinet, which 
must represent and have the support of the lower house of the 
Canadian parliament, and he must accept its resignation when- 
ever it loses the confidence of that house. There is no differ- 
ence, as in Great Britain, between the cabinet and the ministry, 
which numbers about twenty. The Dominion parliament, 
which sits at Ottawa, is made up of two houses — a Senate, 
nominated for life by the governor-general, and a House of 
Commons, which is elected by popular suffrage. The members 
of both houses are so named or chosen as to give to each prov- 
ince a proportional share, though in the lower house Quebec 
is always to have 65 representatives. In each of the nine 
provinces there is a lieutenant-governor and a legislature, which 
is a single house in all but Quebec and Nova Scotia, in each 
of which there are two houses. 

The Commonwealth of Australia is composed of New South 
Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, 
and Tasmania. These communities differ from the corre- 
sponding divisions of Canada in that they are not provinces 
but states, possessing greater independence and authority, for 
in Australia the central government is invested with fewer 
executive and legislative powers than in Canada. The gov- 
ernors of these states are appointed directly by the crown, 
the laws of the states can be vetoed only by their governors 



THE SELF-GOVERNING DOMINIONS 651 

and not by the federal governor-general, and each state has 
its own agent-general in London, in addition to the high com- 
missioner sent by the commonwealth. In many ways they 
are similar to the states of the United States, particularly in 
possessing under the Australian constitution all powers not 
expressly granted to the federal government. The latter con- 
sists of a governor-general appointed by the crown, a cabinet, 
and two houses, one, the Senate, composed of six senators 
from each state elected by the people, and a House of Repre- 
sentatives, the members of which are also elected by the peo- 
ple in proportion to the population of each state. There are 
local parliaments in each of the states, similarly elected, with 
extensive powers of legislation. The capital, which is not yet 
built, is Canberra, destined to be a city like Washington, set 
apart for federal uses, the corner stone of which was laid by 
the Prince of Wales in 1920. 

The Union of South Africa is composed of four provinces, 
Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal, and the Orange Free State, 
none of which has a separate governor or legislature or exercises 
any legislative powers. In each province is an executive 
(provincial administrator) with a small executive council, 
both named by the governor-general, and a provincial council, 
which can make ordinances but not laws and, under the di- 
rection of the central government, can control local taxation, 
agriculture, and education. The provinces of South Africa 
have no original authority and so are less independent than 
those of Canada and very much less independent than those of 
x\ustralia. Even within the narrow limits assigned them they 
can do only what the higher authority allows them to do and 
their powers can be taken away from them at any time. The 
higher authority consists of the governor-general, appointed by 
the crown, who with an executive council sits at Pretoria, and a 
Senate and House of Assembly which sit at Cape Town. The 
members of the Senate are partly elected and partly nominated 
— a unique feature, — while the members of the Assembly are 



652 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

all elected under a fairly liberal suffrage, from which all blacks 
are debarred except in the Cape Colony. 

The Dominion of New Zealand and the Colony of Newfound- 
land are single communities without provinces, and their gov- 
ernments in all essential particulars are similar to those 
prevailing in the other self-governing dominions. Gov- 
ernor, cabinet, legislative council, and representative assembly 
are the familiar features. New Zealand allows women 
to vote and admits into her House of Representatives four 
deputies from the Maories, the original inhabitants of the 
islands. 

Dominio7i Agents in England. Each of the self-governing 
dominions sends to England a dominion agent or high com- 
missioner, whose position is almost that of a colonial ambassador. 
These dominion representatives at the seat of empire enter into 
relations with the British government and with private indi- 
viduals and firms, have business quarters in London that are 
more palatial than some of the foreign embassies, show great 
zeal and energy in encouraging emigration and otherwise push- 
ing the interests of their respective countries, and receive pre- 
ferred treatment at all imperial functions and ceremonies. They 
do a great deal to strengthen the bonds between the mother 
country and the dominions. 

437. India. — The government of India is far too compli- 
cated for more than a very brief consideration here. Some 
features of it have already been discussed (§§ 424, 429). The 
representative of the king-emperor is the viceroy, who with 
an executive council of six and a legislative council of sixty- 
eight, the latter partly nominated and partly elected and repre- 
senting both British and native interests, sits at Delhi, the 
ancient Mogul capital. The legislative council makes laws for 
the whole of British India, but it has no part in administering 
these laws. Administration lies in the hands of the Indian 
Civil Service, a body of men selected after severe competitive 
examinations from candidates both in the United Kingdom and 



THE CROWN COLONIES 653 

in India. These men spend the best years of their hves in the 
Indian service, and are faithful, efficient, able men. They 
serve either as resident district officials in charge of local ad- 
ministrative districts, as commissioners over groups of dis- 
tricts, or as governors, lieutenant-governors, or chief com- 
missioners over the greater or lesser provinces, the highest of 
the purely administrative posts. They may become heads of 
departments at Delhi (or Simla, the summer capital), or even 
members of the viceroy's executive council. Upon them rests 
the burden of British rule in India and to them is largely due the 
success of British control. From among them are usually 
selected the ' residents,' who by treaty with the semi-inde- 
pendent native states, which are governed by their own princes 
but recognize the suzerainty of the British crown, live at the 
native courts, where they protect British subjects and see that 
the native rulers live up to the terms of their agreements. 
There are ' residents ' also in Nepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan, 
each of which is an independent state, except that it lies within 
the Indian sphere of influence and is bound in some measure 
by treaty understandings with the British Empire. 

438. The Crown Colonies. — There are three groups of 
crown colonies, classed according to their forms of government 
(§ 399). These groups contain all overseas territories of the 
Empire, except dominions and protectorates. Those of the 
colonies that stand highest in the list and form the first group 
have governors appointed by the crown, a council nominated 
by the governor, and an assembly elected by the people. This 
was the form of government possessed by a majority of the 
British colonies in America before the Revolution, and is en- 
joyed to-day by Barbadoes, the Bahamas, and Bermuda, each 
of which has a distinguished historical past.i In the second 
class are those with an appointed governor, a council, and a 

1 In this class should probably be placed the island of Malta, which in 
1920 was given a measure of responsible government, to go into effect in 1921 . 
For the early history of British rule in Malta, see Lowell, The Government 
of England, II, 413-416. 



654 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

legislative council, either not elected at all or only partly so. 
In this group are Jamaica, British Guiana, Ceylon, Mauritius, 
Hong Kong, and Cyprus, with legislatures partly elected, 
and Trinidad, Tobago, Straits Settlement, and Sierra Leone, 
where the legislature is not elected but appointed by the gov- 
ernor. In the third group are colonies which are ruled by a 
governor or administrator only, such as Gibraltar and St. Helena. 
All these colonies are under the control of the Colonial Office, 
at the head of which is the secretary of state for the colonies. 

An interesting experiment, begun before the war and some- 
what extended since the peace, is to be seen in the placing of 
certain possessions under the control of the dominions, col- 
onies of colonies. Canada controls the Northwest Territories, 
Australia controls British New Guinea (Papua Territory, to 
which now is added the portion taken from Germany), South 
Africa has the mandatory for the former German Southwest 
Africa, and New Zealand for the former German part of Samoa. 
The results of this novel experiment will be watched with in- 
terest. 

439. Protectorates. — The greatest of the protectorates, 
Egypt, is apparently on the eve of receiving its independence 
(§ 424). For thirty-five years (1879-1914) it had been under 
the control first of Great Britain and France and then (1883) 
of Great Britain alone. In 1914 the latter power, renouncing 
the Turkish suzerainty, changed the veiled protectorate into 
an open one. But four years later, 1920, instead of annexing 
the kingdom to the British Empire, she proposed to give the 
Egyptians their independence under certain conditions,^ which 
when accepted would remove that country for the time being at 
least from among the lands under British control. 

The remaining protectorates are in Africa and Asia, and the 
most important among them are the native states of India, which 

1 Great Britain proposes to place the control of government entirely in 
Egyptian hands and not share it herself with the natives, as is the plan 
provided for in the new Indian government act. 



CONCLUSIONS 655 

manage their own affairs but cannot make war or peace. In 
Africa are Nigeria, Uganda, British East Africa, Nyassaland, 
SomaHland, etc. Some of these, such as Southern Nigeria, 
are almost in the second class of the crown colonies, possess- 
ing legislative and executive councils. Properly speaking, a 
protectorate is not a part of the British Empire, for in most of 
them the native rule is upheld, native rights are maintained, 
and only British subjects resident there come under the authority 
of the secretary of state for foreign affairs. The amount of 
independence that a protectorate possesses varies greatly, being 
determined somewhat by the degree of civilization attained or 
strength possessed. In at least two instances, Northern and 
Southern Rhodesia, control lies in the hands of a chartered 
company — the British South African Company, — which ad- 
ministers the government through an administrator and a legis- 
lative council in each section. In Southern Rhodesia this 
council is in part elected by the white settlers. Zanzibar, the 
federated Malay states, and Brunei (a part of Borneo) are 
among the protectorates, where a British resident assists the 
native rulers in matters of administration. 

Wei-Hai-Wei in China is not a protectorate but a portion of 
Chinese territory leased to Great Britain for a certain number 
of years. Great Britain has jurisdiction there, but China re- 
tains full sovereignty over the territory. 

440. Conclusion. — From this brief survey of the vari- 
ous forms of government prevailing in the British Empire 
it is evident that we have been studying a very remark- 
able state made up in a very remarkable way. There is no 
political organization in the world like it, composed as it is of 
many parts scattered throughout the world, on island and 
continent, differing enormously in size, race, and degree of 
civilization, and representing all sorts and conditions of polit- 
ical, social, and economic life. The British make no idle 
boast when they point to the success with which they have 
met the problems of empire and to the methods whereby they 



656 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

are making it possible for alien races ultimately to govern 
themselves. That in individual instances they have incurred 
hostility and aroused discontent is true, but in a far greater 
number of cases they have won loyalty and enthusiastic sup- 
port. Britain's great gift to the political science of the world 
is the idea of popular sovereignty through representative gov- 
ernment, and her great gift to the political ethics of the world 
is her idea of justice and liberty. Tyranny and slavery do not 
flourish within the bounds of the British Empire. It is the 
identity of these ideas in Great Britain and the United States 
that place these two powers in the very forefront of modern 
civilization. 



References for Chapter XV. — There is no thoroughly satis- 
factory book, recently issued, that describes at length the government 
of the British Empire as it exists to-day. Perhaps the best, though 
it is very brief, is Jenks's The Government of the British Empire (1919). 
Other brief comprehensive works are Low's The Governance of the British 
Empire (1914), Wallace's The Government of England, National, Local, 
and Imperial (1917), and Hogan, The Government of the United Kingdom., 
Its Colonies and Dependencies (1918). The yearly publications, par- 
ticularly Whitaker's Almanack, The New Hazell Annual and Almanack 
(ed. Ingram), and The Statesman's Year Book (ed. Keltie and Epstein), 
are indispensable sources of information regarding the Empire in all its 
parts. 

For the government of the United Kingdom, Lowell's The Government 
of England, 2 vols. (1908, revised edition with additional chapter, 1915) 
is a standard work, which contains a few admirable chapters on the 
Empire (II, pp. 386-438). Older volumes, now somewhat out of date, 
are Courtney's The Working Constitution of the United Kingdom. (1901), 
Moran's The Theory and Practice of the English Government (1903), and 
Chambers's A Constitutional History of England (1909) which deals with 
conditions in 1908. An excellent account of voting methods is in Sey- 
mour and Frary's How the World Votes, 2 vols. (1918), with chapters on 
Great Britain and the colonies. The best brief account of parliament 
is Ilbert's Parliament (1911), but a reliable description, chatty and 
anecdotal, is Graham's The Mother of Parliaments (1911), with excellent 
illustrations of the interiors of both houses, before and after 1834. 
On local government see Chalmers's Local Government (1883), English 



REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XV 657 

Citizen Series, and Rathbone, Pell, and Montagu's Local Administration 
(1885), Imperial Parliament Series, for conditions before 1888, and 
Odger's Local Government (new ed. 1901), English Citizen Series, for 
conditions under the acts of reform. 

Standard works of a more advanced character are Anson's Law and 
Custom of the Constitution, 3 vols, (new eds. 1907, 1908, 1909), Dicey's 
Introduction to the Study of the Constitution (8 ed. 1915), Maitland's 
Constitutional History of England (1908), for conditions in 1888, Ilbert's 
Legislative Methods and Forms (1901), Redlioh's Local Government in 
England, 2 vols. (1903) and The Procedure of the House of Commoiis, 
3 vols. (1908), Holland's continuation of May's Constitutional History 
of England, Vol. Ill, 1860-1911 (1912), Keith's Responsible Government 
in the Dominions, 3 vols, (new ed. enlarged, 1912), and Imperial Unity 
and the Dominions (1916). An old work, originally written in 1844, but 
constantly revised and still useful, is May's Parliamentary Practice 
(ed. Lonsdale, 1917). 



LIST OF SOURCE BOOKS. 

I. COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES. 

Johnston, English Historical Beprints, I, II, Sheehan & Co., Ann 

Arbor, 1896. 
Colby, Selections from the Sources of English History. Longmans, 

1899. 
Lee, Source Book of English History. Holt, 1900. 
Adams and Stephens, Select Documents of English Constitutional 

History. Macmillan, 1901. 
Translations and Reprints, from the Original Sources of European 

History. Longmans. 
Kendall, Source Book of English History. Macmillan, 1900. 
Hill, Liberty Documents. Longmans, 1901. 
Hart, American History told by Contemporaries. 4 vols. Macmillan, 

1897-1901. ■ 
Henderson, Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. Macmillan, 

1892. 
Henderson, Side Lights on English History. Holt, 1900. 
Cheyney, Readings in English History. Ginn, 1908. 
English History Illustrated from Original Sources, edited by 
Warner, published by Black. 

I, to 1066, by Melhuish ; II, 1066-1216, byFrazer ; III, 1216-1307, 
by Frazer ; IV, 1307-1399, by Frazer ; V, 1399-1485, by Dur- 
ham ; VI, 1485-1603, by Frazer ; VII, 1603-1660, by Weaver ; 
VIII, 1660-1715, by Figgis ; IX, 1715-1815, by Icely. 
English History Source Books, edited by Winbolt and Bell, published 
by Bell & Sons. 17 vols. 

Normans in England., 1066-1154., by Bland ; Growth of Parlia- 
ment, 1216-1307 ; War and Misrule, 1307-1399, by Locke ; 
York and Lancaster, 1399-1455, by Jones ; Age of Elizabeth, 
by Esdaile ; Constitution in the Making, 1600-1714, by Ferret ; 
Walpole and Chatham, 1714-1760, by Esdaile ; Jacobite Rebel- 
lions, 1689-1746, by Thomson ; American Independence and the 
French Revolution, by Wombalt ; Peace and Reform, 1815-1837, 
1 



2 LIST OF SOURCE BOOKS. 

by Edwards ; Commercial Politics, 1837-1856, by Gretton ; 
Palmerston to Disraeli, 1856-1876, by Harding ; Imperialism 
and Mr. Gladstone, by Gretton ; Canada, to the Present Bay, 
by Munro ; Scottish History, 2 vols., 1637-1746, City of London. 
University of London's Intermediate Source Books of History. 

Illustrations of Chaucer's England, by Hughes ; England under 
the Yorkists, by Thornley. 
English History from Contemporary Writers, edited by Powell, 
published by Nutt, London. 

Edward III and his Wars, 1327-1360, by Ashley ; The Misrule of 
Henry III, 1236-1251, by Hutton ; Strongbow's Conquest q^ 
Ireland, by Barnard ; Simon of Montfort and his Cause, 1251- 
1265, by Hutton ; The Crusade of Richard I, by Archer ; Eng- 
land under Charles II from 1660 to 1678, by Taylor ; The Wars 
of the Roses, by Thompson ; The Jews of Angevin England, 
by Jacobs. 
Scottish History from Contemporary Writers, edited by Powell, 
imported by the New Amsterdam Book Co., New York. 

The Bays of James IV, 1488-1 513, by Smith ; Mary Queen of 
Scots, 1542-1587, by Rait ; The Rising of 1745, 1689-1788, by 
Terry ; The Chevalier St. George and the Jacobite Movements 
in his Favour, 1701-1720, by Terry. 

Other collections for specified periods are mentioned in the references 
for the chapters. 

II. COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES FOR ADVANCED PUPILS. 

Stubbs, Select Charters. Ninth edition, revised by H. W. C. Davis. 

Macmillan. 
Gee and Hardy, Bocuments Illustrative of English Church History. 
Prothbro, Select Statutes and other Constitutional Bocuments. Fourth 

edition. Macmillan. 
Gardiner, Constitutional Bocumeyits of the Puritan Revolution, 1624- 

1660. Third edition. Macmillan. 
Robertson, Select Statutes, Cases, and Bocuments, to Illustrate English 

Constitutional History, 1660-1832, with a Supplement from 1832 

to 1894. Second edition. Putnam. 
Medley, Original Illustrations of English Constitutional History. 

Macmillan, 1910. 
Keith, Select Speeches and Bocuments in British Colonial Policy, 2 vols. 

World Classics. Oxford Press, 1918. 



LIST OF SOURCE BOOKS. 3 

Bland, Brown, and Tavvney, Select Documents of English Economic 
History. Bell, 1914. 

MacDonald, Select Charters and Other Documents Illustrative of Ameri- 
can History. Macmillan, 1899. 

MacDonald, Select Documents Illustrative of the History of the United 
States. Macmillan, 1898. 

MacDonald, Select Statutes of United States History, 1861-1898. 
Macmillan, 1903. 



LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE IN 
SCHOOLS. 

A majority of the books contained in the following lists can be used to 
advantage in secondary schools by pupils who may be required to do a 
certain amount of collateral reading. All are books that any well- 
equipped teacher should know about, because they represent the best 
available literature, in moderate compass, that deals with English history 
in all its aspects, 

I. GENERAL LIST. 

Gardiner, A Studenfs History of England to 1919. 1 vol. or 3 vols. 

Longmans. With accompanying atlas of English History. 
Ransome, An Advanced History of England to 1919. Macmillan. 
Green, A Short History of the English People continued to 1914. Harper. 
LiNGARD, History of England, abridged and continued to 1910. George 

Bell & Sons. 
Innes, a History of England and the British Empire. 4 vols. Riving- 

ton's, 1913-1915. 
Tout, An Advanced History of Great Britain to 1918. 1 vol. or 3 vols. 

Longmans, 1919. 

Each of the three short histories first named has decided merits of its 
own. Green is delightful to read and unique in its treatment of the life 
of the people, but it is not always accurate, particularly in its earlier 
parts, and owing to its disregard of chronology is a hard book for the 
student to use. Nevertheless every pupil should read certain portions of 
it, if for no other reason than to be inspired by its enthusiasm. Gardiner 
is scholarly and full, but its arrangement is sometimes confusing and the 
style lacking in life and color. Eansome is more interesting than Gardi- 
ner and in many parts better, because the author has not attempted to 
include as many minor details, and the narrative is more continuous and 
at times more vivid. Bird's abridgment of Lingard is an excellent his- 
tory, chiefly political, written from the standpoint of a fair-minded 
Roman Catholic scholar. Innes's history has many merits, while that of 
Tout, though designed as a text book, is the work of an eminent English 
historian and can be highly recommended. Among American works 

4 



LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. 5 

those of Terry, A History of England to 1901 (1901) and Cross, A History 
of England and Greater Britain (1914), shorter edition to 1919 (1920), are 
excellent, each in its own way. 

Traill, Social England to 1885. 6 vols. Putnam, 1894-1897. Illus- 
trated edition, 1902-1905. 

Social England, though uneven in merit and expensive, is almost indis- 
pensable. Carefully selected portions may be read by pupils, who will 
find in the work much that cannot readily be obtained elsewhere. The 
illustrated edition is an* improvement upon the first edition, for the first 
volume has been largely rewritten and the illustrations are unusually fine. 

Constitutional History. 

Masterman, J. H. B., History of the British Constitution. Macmillan. 
Montague, F. C, The Elements of English Constitutional History. 

New ed. Longmans, 1908. 
Pollard, A. F., The Evolution of Parliament. Longmans, 1920. 
Ilbert, C, Parliament. Home University Library, 1911. 

Each of these works has the merit of brevity and reliability and each is 
in its own way interesting. Masterman' s history is excellent for a 
beginner. Montague's in its revised form is equally satisfactoiy. 
Pollard's work is a brilliant contribution, characterized by insight and 
sound scholarship. Ilbert's little book on parliament is the work of the 
Clerk of the House of Commons and is authoritative. In addition mention 
may be made of Dale, The Principles of English Constitutional History 
(1902), and Chambers, A Constitutional History of England (1909, 4th ed. 
revised, 1916), the first of which is a longer work, quite as much political 
as constitutional, and the second a treatise on the institutions of govern- 
ment, historically considered. Neither is particularly readable. 

Industrial and Social History. 

Price, A Short History of English Commerce and Industry. Arnold, 

1900. 
Cheyney, Industrial and Social History of England. 2d edition, 

Macmillan, 1920. 
Warner, Landmarks of English Industrial History. 11th edition, 

Macmillan, 1910. 
Cunningham and Mac Arthur, Outlines of English Industrial History. 

3d edition, Macmillan. 
Meredith, Outlines of Economic History of England. Pitman, 1908. 
Innes, England''s Industrial Development. Rivington's, 1912. 



6 LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. 

TiCKNER, A Social and Industrial History of England. Illustrated, 

Longmans, 1915. 
Cressy, An Outline of English Industrial History. Macmillan, 1915. 
Usher, An Introduction to the Industrial History of England. Houghton 

Mifflin, 1920. 
"Wood, Industrial History in the Eighteenth Century. Murray, 1910. 
Rees, Social and Industrial History of England, 1815-1918. Methuen, 

1918. 
Chart, An Economic History of Ireland. Talbot Press, 1920. 

Brief histories of economic, industrial, and social life in the British 
Isles have been very much the fashion in the last few years. All of the 
works mentioned above have value but differ greatly in manner of treat- 
ment. Meredith, Cressy (which deals mainly with the last two centuries), 
and Usher are designed for older readers. Cheyney, Warner, Innes, and 
Wood are less technical and written in a simpler style. Tickner is popu- 
lar and readable. There are brief outlines, designed for younger readers 
by Salmon, An Introductory Economic History of England (1912), 
Alsopp, An Introduction to English Industrial History (1913), Wilmot- 
Buxton, A Social History of England (1918), Bradshaw, A Social History 
of England (1918), Briggs, An Economic History of England (1919), and 
Cressy, Brief Sketch of Social and Industrial History (1920) . 

Church History. 

HuTTON, A Short History of the Church in Great Britain. Macmillan, 

1900. 
Wakeman, Introduction to the History of the Church of England. 

Macmillan, 1908. 
Perry, A History of the English Church, 3 vols. 1881-1891. Murray 

(Students' Manuals) . 
Stephens and Hunt, A History of the English Church through the 

Nineteenth Century. 8 vols. Macmillan. 

Hutton's short history is a useful account. Wakeman s is probably 
the best brief work that we have and can be highly recommended. 
Perry's is longer but an older work and is less readable. The still 
longer work of Stephens and his collaborations is the best that has been 
written, but it contains a great deal more than the pupil can use and 
selections from it should be made with care. All of these histories are 
written by clergymen of the Church of England, but except for Hutton's 
and in a measure for Perry's are not presented with any particular 



LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. 



Colonial History. 

Williamson, Foundations and Growth of the British Empire. Long- 
mans, 1918. 

Woodward, A Short History of the Expansion of the British Empire. 
Macmillan, 1902. 

Hawke, The British Empire and its History. Murray, 1911. 

Hughes, Britain and Greater Britain in the Nineteenth Century. Cam- 
bridge University Press, 1920. 

Greswell, Growth and Administration of the British Colonies, 1837- 
1897. Blackie, 1898. 

CuRREY, British Colonial Policy., 1783-1915. Oxford University Press. 

BouRiNOT, Canada under British Rule., 1760-1900. Macmillan. 

Griffith, The Dominion of Canada. "AH Red " British Empire Series. 
Little, Brown & Co. 

Birkenhead, Story of Newfoundland. New and enlarged edition. Story 
of the Empire Series. Marshall. 

Jenks, History of the Australasian Colonies. 3d ed., Macmillan, 1912. 

Bateson, Australia. Story of the Empire Series, Marshall. 

Scott, A Short History of Australia. Oxford University Press, 1916. 

Theal, South Africa. Story of the Nations Series. Putnam, 1899. 

Fairbridge, a History of South Africa. 1918. 

Innes, a Short History of the British in India. New and cheapei 
edition, Methuen, 1905. 

Smith, The Oxford Student's History of India. Eighth edition revised. 

Tihi.t^Y, The English People Overseas. 4 vols. 1912. 

Military and Naval History. 

George, Battles of English History from Hastings to the Indian 

Mutiny. Dodd, Mead & Co., 1895. 
Hannay, a Short History of the Royal Navy, 1^17-1688. 2 vols. 

New edition. Methuen, 1909. 

Scottish, Irish, and Welsh History. 

Hume Brown, History of Scotland. 3 vols.: I, to 1561; II, to 1689; 

III, to 1843. New illustrated edition, revised and continued to 1910. 

Macmillan. 
Lang, A., History of Scotland. 4 vols. Blackwood. 
Joyce, P. W., A Concise History of Ireland from Earliest Times to 

1908. Twentieth edition. Longmans. 



8 LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. 

Joyce, P. W., ^ Short History of Ireland from Earliest Times to 1608. 

Third edition. Longmans. 
Morris, Ireland 1494-1898^ with two introductory chapters. Revised 

and continued by Dunlop to 1905. Macmillan. 
Edwards, Wales. New edition. Story of the Nations Series. Putnam. 

Atlases. 

Gardiner's Atlas of English History. Longmans. 

Robertson and Bartholomew, Historical and Modern Atlas of the 

British Empire. 1906. 
Shepherd, Historical Atlas. Holt, 1911. 

Genealogical Tables. 

George, Genealogical Tables Illustrative of Modern History. Fifth 
edition, revised and enlarged by Weaver. Clarendon Press, 1916. 

General List for Advanced Students. 

Two cooperative histories have been issued: Hunt and Poole, A Politi- 
cal History of England., twelve volumes, Longmans ; and Oman, A 
History of England., six volumes, Putnam. Each closes with 1901. 
Lingard's History of England has been edited by Belloc in eleven vol- 
umes and continued to 1910. The continuation is characteristic of 
Belloc's work — often biased, sometimes shrewd, never impartial. Sir 
James Ramsay's The Scholar's History of England, to 1485, eight 
volumes, Macmillan, is, as the title indicates, a work of learning, de- 
signed chiefly for scholars. Taswell-Langmead's English Constitutional 
History, Houghton Mifllin, cheap edition, is still useful ; while Medley's 
English Constitutional History, fifth edition, Macmillan, is a valuable 
work of reference, and Maitland's Constitutional History of England, 
Cambridge University Press, is stimulating and suggestive. Ashley's 
English Economic History, to 1485, two volumes, Longmans, and Cun- 
ningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce, three volumes, 
Cambridge University Press, are standard authorities. Holdsworth's 
A History of English Law, three volumes. Little, Brown & Co., carries 
the history of the courts (in volume first) to the end of the nineteenth 
century, but the history of the law (in volumes two and three) only to 
the end of the Middle Ages. The great work on the early history of the 
law is Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law to the Reign of 
Edward I, two volumes, 2d edition, Little, Brown & Co. On the House 
of Lords, see Pike's Constitutional History of the House of Lords from 



LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. 9 

Original Sources^ Macmillan. On the army and navy the standard works 
are Fortescue, History of the British Army, ten volumes, to 1815, Mac- 
millan, and The Royal Navy, edited by Clowes, five volumes, Little, 
Brown & Co., a work of collaboration. The only complete bibliography 
of early English history is Gross's Sources and Literature of English 
History to 1485, 2d edition, containing references to 1910, Longmans. 
There is no single bibliography of the later period, though one is projected 
by English and American scholars. 

Mention should also be made of The Cambridge Medieval History, 
eight volumes (three volumes out, 1920), and The Cambridge Modern 
History, fourteen volumes, which contain important and authoritative 
chapters on English history. They are both published by Macmillan. 



11. LIST OF SERIES, CHIEFLY BIOGRAPHICAL AND EPOCHAL. 

Early Britain Series, S. P. C. K., imported by Pott, Young & Co.: 
Celtic Britain, by Rhys ; Roman Britain, by Scarth ; Anglo-Saxon 
Britain, by Grant Allen ; Norman Britain, by Hunt. 

Conversion of the West Series, S. P. C. K., imported by Pott, 
Young & Co. : The Celts, The English, The Northmen, by Maclear. 

The Fathers for English Readers, S. P. C. K., imported by Pott, 
Young & Co, : St. Patrick, by Newell ; St. Augustine, by Cutts ; 
The Venerable Bede, by Browne. 

Epochs of Modern History, edited by Morris, published by Long- 
mans : Tlie Normans in Europe, by Johnson ; The Early Plantage- 
nets, by Stubbs ; Edward HI, by Warburton ; The Houses of Lan- 
caster and York, by Gairdner ; The Early Tudors, by Moberly ; 
The Age of Elizabeth, by Creighton ; The Puritan Revolution, 
1603-1660, by Gardiner ; The English Restoration and Louis 
XIV, by Airy ; The Fall of the Stuarts and Western Europe, by 
Hale ; The Age of Anne, by Morris ; The Early Hanoverians, by 
Morris ; The Epoch of Reform, 1830-1850, by McCarthy. 

Epochs of Church History, published by Longmans: The English 
Church in the Middle Ages, by Hunt ; Wycliffe and the Movements 
of Reform, by Poole ; The History of the Reformation in England, 
by Perry ; The Church and the Puritans, by Wakeman ; The 
Evangelical Revival in the Eighteenth Century, by Overton. 

Heroes of the Nations, published by Putnam : Cromwell, by Firth ; 
0' Connell, by Dunlop ; Glyndwr, by Bradley ; Henry V, by 
Kingsford ; Edward I, by Jenks ; Sir Philip Sidney, by Fox 
Boiu-ne ; Nelson, by Russell ; Chatham, by Greene ; Robert the 



10 LIST (^F BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. 

Bruce, by Maxwell'; Wellington, by Morris ; William the Con- 
queror, by Stanton ; Canute, by Larson. 

Heroes of the Reformation, published by Putnam : Cranmer, by 
Pollard ; Knox, by Cowan. 

Historical Biographies, edited by Creighton, published by Long- 
mans: Simon de Montfort, The Black Prince, Sir Walter Raleigh; 
Oliver Cromwell ; The Duke of Marlborough ; The Duke of Wel- 
lington. 

English Men of Action, published by Macmillan : Clive, by Wilson ; 
Cook, by Besant ; Drake, by Corbett ; Hastings, by Lyall ; 
Havelock, by Forbes ; Monk, by Corbett ; Peterborough, by Steb- 
bing ; Strafford, by Traill ; Warwick, by Oman ; Rodney, by 
Hannay ; Wellington, by Hooper ; Montrose, by Morris ; Wolfe, 
by Bradley ; Nelson, by Laughton ; Gordon, by Butler ; Dundon- 
ald, by Fortesque ; Colin Campbell, by Forbes ; Henry V, by 
Church ; Livingstone, by Hughes ; Laurence, by Temple ; Napier, 
by Butler. 

[International] Statesmen Series, edited by Sanders, published by 
W. H. Allen : Beaconsfield, by Kebbel ; Derby, by Kebbel ; Bol- 
ingbroke, by Hassall; Palmerston, by Sanders; Fox, by AVake- 
inan ; 0' Connell, by Hamilton ; Peel, by Montague ; Grattan, by 
Dunlop ; Marquis Wellesley, by Malleson ; Dalhousie, by Trotter. 

Twelve English Statesmen, published by Macmillan : William the 
Conqueror, by Freeman; Henry II, by Mrs. Green; Edward I, by 
Tout ; Henry VII, by Gairdner ; Cardinal Wolsey, by Creighton ; 
Elizabeth, by Beesly ; Oliver Cromwell, by Harrison ; William III, 
by Traill ; Walpole, by Morley ; Chatham, by Harrison ; Pitt, by 
Rosebery ; Peel, by Thurstield. 

English Worthies, edited by Andrew Lang, published by Longmans : 
Marlborough, by Saintsbury; Shaftesbury, by Traill; Blake, by 
Hannay; Raleigh, by Gosse; Canning, by Hill; Claverhouse, by 
Morris. 

World's Benefactors, published by Revell : John Knox, by Smith. 

The Queen's Prime Ministers, edited by Reid, published by Harper: 
Beaconsfield, by Fronde; Melbourne, by Dunckley; Peel, by 
McCarthy; Palmerston, by the Marquis of Lome; Gladstone, by 
Russell; Salisbury, by Traill; Derby, by Saintsbury; Aberdeen, hy 
Stanmore; Russell, by Reid. 

Rulers of India, edited by Hunter; published by Macmillan: Clive, 
by Malleson, Dupleix, by Malleson; Hastings, by Trotter; Wellesley, 
by Holton; Dalhousie, by Hunter; Lawrence, by Atchison; Mayo, 



LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. H 

by Hunter; Bentinck, by Boulger; Mddhava Bdo Sindhia, by 

B.orp;™tr::7— . ^. —^ -^-^^ -- 

c7«.mer, by Innes ; Wesley and Meiftodfam, by Sndl -WycWe 
ZZ LoLrds,M Carrick; J^e»»>a„. by Sarolea; Hume, by 

Mak*^rJop National H.storv, edited by Hutton (W H.) pub- 
Zed by Pitman. Bea./ort, by Eadfori; Castlerea^k by Ha^sall; 
Pair, by Kennedy; Wolfe, by Salmon; Attert.r,, by Beechn,g; 
Edioard IV, by Stratford; Becket, by Button. 
LKA^t It- K^uLk, edited by Beeching, published by Pitman: New- 
Zn by Hutton E. H,); Wesley, by Overton; WiWerforce y>J 
Zll^MannM Button ( A. W.) ; Simeons, by Mou e; AeWe 
by Loci; Komas Chalmers, bjUvs. Oliphant; ianceiot 4«dre«,e., 
by(Htley; ^uf,«stoe, by Cutts; £a«(i, by Hutton (\V. H.); hnox 
by MacC^nn; Ho»e, by Horton; Ken, by ClaAe; ^ox,^y ^o^; 
kin; Donne, by Jessopp; Cranmer, by Mason; iatomer, by Carlyle 
(K.'m. and A. J.); Butler, by Spooner. , ,. , . .^ P„„ 

Kmos AKn QrEE.s of England, edited by Ra,t, pub .sbed by Con- 
Itle: Henry VII, by Temperley; Henr, 11, by f — ^ ^,^^^. 
Stok.., o. thb Nations, published by Putman: ^;^'«»<'' "^^^^^^ fj' 
Scottand by Mackintosh; .4«straiaaia, by Tregarthen; bouth 
l;": by /heal; Ca-a, by Bourinot; i*H*.^ ^f"^'''^^^ 
Frazer; HW Indies, by Fiske; £».</!and .n the XlXth Century 
bv McCarthy; H'aies, by Edwards; ParUcmenlary Enyland, by 
]ll7MedLal England, by Bateson; Comin, of ParUament, 

CmbL'::" HroKKA,, S...ks, edited by G. W. Prothero, publish^. 

''•^ by Cambridge University Press: S™«-^' ''/ f"'™ r;;- % 
l„„d by Morris; Canado under British Bute, nM^WOO by 
Bou;inol Australasian Colonies, byJenks; Colonization of Afrrr,a, 

MakIT™" NATIONS, published by Black: *o«and by R^t 
Gre T NATIONS Series, published by Stokes: Scotiand by Mackie. 
Stobv o- THE Empire Series, pubhshed by Marshal: Canada^^y 
ThLon; i^e,»/o«ndiand, by Birkenhead; Au.tral^a, by Bateson, 

victoria; rtXs, edited by Rose, r>^!-ff -^J^.f^ 
Bright, by Vince ; The Anglican Bemml, by Overton , The B^se 



12 LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. 

of Democracy, by Rose ; English National Education^ by Hol- 
man ; Earl of Beaconsjield, by Gorst ; The Free Trade Movement 
and its Results, by Armitage-Smith ; Growth and Administration 
of the British Colonies, by Greswell. 

Of the making of "Series" there is no end. The Hst given above is 
only approximately complete. Volumes of interest to the student of 
English history may be found in such collections as The Wayfarer's 
Library, Everyman's Library, World Classics, and Home University 
Library. 

III. LIST OF WORKS OF FICTION. 

For lists of works of fiction, prose, and poetry, illustrating English 
history, the teacher is referred to the following : — 

Allen (W. F.), The Reader's Guide to English History, pp. 13-33. 
Ginn, 1882. 

This small paper-covered j^amphlet contains well-selected lists of 
books up to the date of publication, arranged in parallel columns with 
genealogical tables and historical works running chronologically. 

BowEN (H. Courthope), a Descriptive Catalogue of Historical Novels 
and Tales, for the Use of School Libraries and Teachers of History. 
Scribner, 1882. 

For practical use, this work, otherwise excellent, is marred by the 
failure of the editor to discriminate or to criticise. 

Larnei), History of England, pp. 642-647. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
1901. 

Mr. Larned has printed here a brief but useful list of the best novels 
arranged by periods. 

NiELDs (J.), A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales. Putnam, 
4th ed., 1911. 

This is an excellent work and contains well-selected lists of novels, 
arranged chronologically, with a supplement of the best English historical 
novels for juveniles (pp. 145-164). 

Baker, E. A., A Guide to the Best Fiction. New edition, Macmillan, 
1914. 

This is an elaborate work, but for our purpose less useful than the next 
in the list. 



LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRACTICAL USE. 13 

Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction, Macmillan, 1914. 

The lists for British history are on pages 1-154, 416-418. This work is 
a sort of atlas of historical fiction, an enlargement of an appendix origi- 
nally printed in the Guide to the Best Fiction. As a separate publica- 
tion it first appeared as History in Fiction, two vols., 1908, but has now 
been published in the present form. 

Buckley and Williams, A Guide to British Historical Fiction. 
Harrap, 1912. 

The titles are arranged chronologically, with a synopsis of each tale, 
as well as date, period, price, and publisher. The volume forms a very 
handy little manual. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Romans in Britain 55 B.C.-410 

Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in Britain ..... 449-600 

St. Coluraba at lona 563 

Battle of Deorham . 577 

Introduction of Christianity . 597 

Battle of Chester . 616 

Synod of Whitby 6^4 

Theodore of Tarsus 669-680 

First Invasion of the Danes 781-878 

Alfred the Great 848- (899) 901 

Peace with Danes ......«•• ^''^i ^^5 

Eadward the Elder . , 901-924 

^thelstan ^ • 924-940 

Battle of Brunanburh ^^37 

Eadmund 940-946 

Eadgar 959-975 

Dunstan 924-988 

Second Invasion of the Danes ....... 980-1016 

^thelredll 976-1016 

Cnut , . . . 1016-1035 

Harold, Harthacnut 1037-1042 

Eadward the Confessor 1042-1066 

Outlawry of Godwine 1050 

Return of Godwine and Harold 1052 

War with Wales .......... 1055-1066 

Outlawry of Tostig 1065 

Harold 1066 

Battle of Stamford Bridge ...... September 25, 1066 

Battle of Hastings October 14, 1063 

William I, the Conqueror 1066-1087 

Conquest of the North 1067-1071 

Gemdt at Gloucester. Domesday Book 1085-1086 

Gemot at Salisbury 1086 

William II, Rufus 1087-1100 

Henry I 1100-1135 

15 



16 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

Battle of Tinchebrai September 25, 1106 

Investiture Struggle 1102-1107 

Stephen 1135-1154 

Battle of Lincoln 1141 

Treaty of Wallingford = , . .1154 

Henry II 1154-1189 

Thomas ^ Becket 1118-1170 

Constitutions of Clarendon 1164 

Assize of Clarendon 1166 

Henry's Attempt to conquer Ireland 1169-1171 

Assize of Northampton 1176 

Assize of Arms 1181 

Henry's War with his Sons 1183-1189 

Richard I 1189-1199 

Embarks on Crusade 1189 

Capture and Ransom of Richard 1193-1194 

War of Richard with Philip Augustus 1194-1199 

John 1199-1216 

Philip II summons John 1202 

Murder of Arthur .- 1203 

Philip seizes John's Fiefs 1203 

John's Submission to the Pope ........ 1212 

Battle of Bouvines July 27, 1214 

Signing of Magna Carta June 15, 1215 

Prince Louis invades England May, 1216 

Henry III 1216-1272 

Confirmation of Magna Carta 1217-1218 

Hubert de Burgh, Justiciar . 1220-1227 

Coming of Dominicans 1220 

Coming of Franciscans 1224 

Henry assumes Control of Government 1227 

Expedition of Henry to France 1230 

Aliens in England 1232, 1237, 1247-1258 

Henry's Marriage with Eleanor 1237 

Meeting of " Parliaments " 1244-1245 

Sicilian Crown offered to Edmund . . . . . . . 1253 

Expedition of Henry to France 1254 

War with Welsh 1256-1258 

Provisions of Oxford 1258 

Treaty of Paris with Louis IX 1259 

Mise of Amiens . . . o 1264 

Battle of Lewes 1264 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 17 

First Great Parliament . . . 1265 

Battle of Evesham August 4, 1265 

Prince Edward on Crusade 1268-1274 

Edward I 1272-1307 

Edward crowned King 1274 

Hundred Rolls 1274-1275 

First Statute of Westminster 1275 

Statute of Gloucester 1278 

Quo Warranto Inquiry 1278-1279 

Statute of Mortmain 1279 

War with Weisli, Llewellyn, Prince of Wales .... 1277-1284 

Statute of Merchants 1283 

Second Statute of Westminster 1285 

Statute of Winchester 1285 

Statute of Quia Emptores 1290 

Jews driven from England 1290 

Question of Succession in Scotland 1290 

Quarrel with Philip VI of France 1293 

The Model Parliament 1295 

Bull Clericis Laicos 1296 

Conquest of Scotland 1296 

Quarrel with the Barons 1297 

Confirmation of the Charters November 5, 1297 

Peace with France 1298 

Rising of Scotland under Wallace 1297-1298 

Battle of Falkirk ........ July 22, 1298 

Execution of Wallace 1305 

Edward II 1307-1327 

" Lords Ordainers " 1310 

The New Ordinances 1311 

Battle of Bannockburn June 24, 1314 

Birth of Wiclif 1320 

Deposition of Edward II 1327 

Edward III 1327-1377 

Rule of Mortimer 1327-1330 

Birth of William Langland (about) 1330 

Edward become Ruler 1330 

Division of Parliament into Two Houses 1332 

Edward grants Freedom of Trade to Aliens 1335 

Birth of Froissart 1337 

Birth of Chaucer 1340 

Edward assumes Arms of France 1340 



18 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

Beginning of Hundred Years' War : Battle of Sluys . . . 1340 
Battle of Cr^cy . . . . c . . . August 26, 1346 

The Black Death 1348-1349 

Statute of Laborers 1351 

First Statute of Provisors 1351 

First Statute of Praemunire . . c 1353 

Battle of Poitiers September 19, 1356 

Treaty of Bretigny 1360 

Wiclif issues Pamphlet, Dominion of God 1366 

English lose all but Bordeaux, Bayonne, Calais .... 1375 

The Good Parliament 1376 

Death of the Black Prince 1376 

Wiclif 's Views condemned by Pope 1377 

Richard II 1377-1399 

Regency appointed by Parliament 1377 

Great Schism in Mediaeval Church . . . . . . . 1378 

Peasants' Revolt 1381 

Wiclif 's Doctrines condemned by English Church .... 1382 

Richard assumes the Government 1383 

Death of Wiclif 1384 

The " Merciless " Parliament . 1388 

Second Statute of Provisors 1390 

Statute of Maintenance and Liveries 1390 

Law against Alien Merchants 1392 

Second Statute of Praemunire 1393 

Parliament of Shrewsbury 1398 

Deposition of Richard II 1399 

Henry IV 1399-1413 

Statute De Hceretico Comburendo 1401 

Hotspur Conspiracy 1403 

Uprising of Wales under Glendower 1403 

Council of Pisa 1409 

Henry V 1413-1422 

Reopening of Hundred Years' War 1414 

Battle of Agincourt . . 1415 

Execution of Sir John Oldcastle 1418 

Treaty of Troyes • 1420 

Henry VI 1422-1461 

Appearance of Joan of Arc 1428 

Final Loss of French Territory 1428-1453 

First Franchise Law 1429 

Burning of Joan of Arc May 30, 1431 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 19 

Impeachment of Suffolk 1450 

Jack Cade's Rebellion 1450 

Duke of York, Protector 1454 

First Battle of St. Albans May 22, 1455 

Battle of Northampton July 10, 1460 

Battle of Wakefield December 30, 1460 

Battle of Mortimer's Cross February 2, 1461 

Second Battle of St. Albans February 17, 1461 

Battle of Towton March 29, 1461 

Edward IV, crowned King June 30, 1461 

Treaty of Commerce with Burgundy 1467 

Dismissal of Warwick . 1467 

Battle of Barnet April 14, 1471 

Battle of Tewkesbury May 4, 1471 

Death of Henry VI May 21, 1471 

War with France 1475 

War with Scotland 1482 

Edward V, Usurpation of Richard of Gloucester .... 1483 

Richard III 1483-1485 

Murder of Sons of Edward IV 1483 

Richard defeated at Bosworth 1485 

Henry VII 1485-1509 

Marriage of Henry with Elizabeth of York I486 

Conspiracy of Lambert Simnel 1487 

Court of Star Chamber 1487 

Conspiracy of Perkin Warbeck 1492 

An Early Navigation Act 1494 

Magnus Intercursus 1496 

Voyage of John Cabot 1497 

Marriage of Catherine of Aragon to Prince Arthur .... 1501 

Marriage of Margaret to James IV 1502 

Incorporation of Merchant Adventurers ...... 1505 

Henry VIII 1509-1547 

Marriage of Henry with Catherine of Aragon 1509 

The Holy League 1511 

John Colet founds St. Paul's School 1512 

Battle of Flodden 1513 

Erasmus in England 1510-1514 

Wolsey, Chancellor of England and Cardinal 1515 

Sir Thomas More writes Utopia 1516 

Birth of Princess Mary 1516 

Meeting on Field of the Cloth of Gold 1620 



20 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

Henry writes Pamphlet against Luther 1522 

Efforts of Henry to obtain Divorce from Catherine . . . 1527-1529 

Death of Wolsey 1530 

Appearance of Thomas Cromwell 1531 

Henry assumes Title, Protector, and Supreme Head of Church . 1531 
Parliament passes Act for the Conditional Restraint of Annates . 1532 
Marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn .... 1532 or 1533 

Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury 1533 

Birth of Princess Elizabeth 1533 

Acts marking Separation from Rome, forbidding Appeals, abolish- 
ing Payment of Annates, giving King Right of Ecclesiastical 

Appointment 1534 

Act of Supremacy 1534 

Act of Treason 1534 

Miles Coverdale's Bible 1535 

Execution of Sir Thomas More 1535 

Execution of Anne Boleyn 1536 

Marriage with Jane Seymour 1536 

Dissolution of Lesser Monasteries 1636 

Annexation of Wales 1536 

The Ten Articles 1536 

Birth of Prince Edward (VI) 1537 

The Pilgrimage of Grace 1536-1537 

Destruction of the Friaries 1538 

Dissolution of Greater Monasteries 1539 

Six Articles Act 1539 

Marriage with Anne of Cleves January, 1540 

Fall and Execution of Thomas Cromwell . . . . July 28, 1540 

Marriage with Catherine Howard July 28, 1540 

Ireland made a Kingdom . . 1542 

Organization of Council of Wales 1542 

Marriage with Catherine Parr 1543 

Peace with France 1546 

Edward VI 1647-1553 

The Protector Somerset ^ . . 1547 

Battle of Pinkie September 10, 1547 

First Act of Uniformity ' , . 1548 

Act legalizing Marriage of Priests . , . , . . . 1548 

First Book of Common Prayer 1549 

Kett's Rebellion 1548-1549 

Fall of Somerset 1549 

Warwick, Duke of Northumberland, Head of Council , . . 1549 



I 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 21 

Second Act of Uniformity 1552 

Second Book of Common Prayer 1552 

Death of Edward VI July 6, 1553 

Attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the Throne . . July 10, 1553 

Mary I proclaimed July 13, 1553-1558 

E^xecution of Northumberland August 22, 1553 

First Act of Repeal October, 1553 

Wyatt's Insurrection . . . . ' . . . . February, 1554 

Execution of Lady Jane Grey February, 1554 

Marriage of Mary and Philip of Spain July, 1554 

Revival of the Heresy Acts November, 1554 

Second Act of Repeal December(?), 1554 

Burning of Hooper, Ridley, and Latimer . . . . October, 1555 

War with France I557 

Elizabeth 1558-1603 

Act of Supremacy January, 1559 

Act of Uniformity January, 1559 

Mary Stuart Queen of France June, 1559 

First Court of High Commission . . . . = July 19, 1559 

Reformation in Scotland 1559-1561 

Treaty of Edinburgh July, 1560 

Elizabeth's Proclamation reforming the Coinage .... 1560 
Mary Stuart Queen of Scots .... August 19, 1561-1568 
Rejection of Puritan Demands by Convocation . . February, 1563 
Adoption of Thirty-nine Articles by Convocation .... 1563 

Poor Law, Statute of Apprentices . 1563 

Incorporation of Merchants Adventurers 1564 

Marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley . . July, 1565 

Birth of Prince James (I and VI) December, 1566 

Murder of Darnley February, 1567 

Mary Queen of Scots compelled to abdicate .... July, 1567 

Flight of Mary to England May, 1568 

Norfolk Conspiracy against Elizabeth 1569 

Excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope . . . February 25, 1570 

Ridolfi Plot 1570-1571 

Acts concerning Treason and Papal Bulls . . April-May, 1571 

Act sanctioning the Thirty-Nine Articles . . , April-May, 1571 

Execution of Duke of Norfolk January, 1572 

Elizabeth aids the Flemish 1576 

Drake returns in the Pelican 1580 

Jesuits enter England 1581 _ 

Cartwright's Book of Discipline 1680 



22 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

Execution of Edmund Campion .... December, 1581 

Kuthven Kaid August, 1582 

Expedition of Ralegh to Virginia ' . . 1584 

Act against tlie Jesuits 1585 

Dialie in the West Indies , 1585 

Execution of Babington August, 1586 

Execution of Mary Queen of Scots February, 1587 

Martin Marprelate Controversy 1588 

The Spanish Armada 1588 

Drake and Essex in Spain . „ 1589 

Act against the Puritans 1593 

Second Spanish Armada 1596 

Howard, Essex, and Ralegh in Cadiz 1596 

Second Poor Law 1597,1601 

Execution of Essex 1601 

Controversy over Monopolies 1601 

James I . 1603-1625 

Millenary Petition April, 1603 

CobhamPlot 1603 

"Apology" of House of Commons June 20, 1604 

Treaty between England and Spain August, 1604 

Gunpowder Plot 1605 

Incorporation of Plymouth and London Companies . . . 1606 

Settlement of Virginia . 1607 

Death of Prince Henry (son of James I) 1612 

Execution of Sir Walter Ralegh 1618 

Voyage of Mayfloiver to America . . . . . . . 1620 

" Protest " of Parliament 1621 

Spanish Marriage Scheme 1623 

Failure of Scheme : Prince Charles's Return to England . . 1624 

War with Spain : Alliance with France 1624 

Charles I 1625-1649 

Marriage of Charles I and Henrietta Maria of France . . May, 1625 

Buckingham's Expedition to Cadiz 1626 

Parliament impeaches Buckingham 1626 

Expedition to La Rochelle 1627 

Petition of Right 1628 

Assassination of Buckingham February, 1629 

" Resolutions " of House of Commons .... February, 1629 

Settlement of Massachusetts Bay 1630 

Went worth (Strafford) in Ireland 1632-1639 

Settlement of Maryland 1632 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 23 

Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury 1633 

Levies of Ship Money 1634, 1635, 1636, 1637 

Trial of John Hampden 1636 

Extension of Episcopacy into Scotland 1636 

National Scottish Covenant 1638 

Abolition of Episcopacy by Scots 1639 

Short Parliament April, 1640 

Long Parliament meets November, 1640 

Root and Branch Petition December, 1640 

Strafford impeached and executed ...... 1640, 1641 

Triennial Act February, 1641 

Acts abolishing Star Chamber, High Commission Courts, 

Councils of North and of Wales July, 1641 

Acts declaring Ship Money illegal and making Additional 

Reforms August, 1641 

Grand Remonstrance November, 1641 

Attempted Arrest of the Five Members .... January, 1642 

Militia Bill . . March, 1642 

Charles I calls out the Militia May, 1642 

Parliament appoints Committee of Public Safety . . . July, 1642 

Battle of Edgehill October, 1642 

Westminster Assembly July, 1643 

Solemn League and Covenant September, 1643 

Scots invade England January, 1644 

Battle of Marston Moor July, 1644 

Battle of Naseby July, 1645 

Fall of Oxford : Close of First Civil War June, 1646 

Heads of Proposals . August, 1647 

First Agreement of the People October, 1647 

Flight of Charles I November, 1647 

Second Civil War 1648 

Capture of Colchester : End of War . . . . * August, 1648 

Pride's Purge December, 1648 

Trial and Execution of Charles I January, 1649 

Second Agreement of the People .... January 20, 1649 
Abolition of Office of King and of the House of Lords . March, 1649 

Proclamation of Republic May, 1649 

Republic, Commonwealth 1649-1654 

Cromwell in Ireland, Wexford, Drogheda 1649 

Battle of Dunbar September, 1650 

Prince Charles crowned at Scone January, 1651 

Battle of Worcester September, 1651 



24 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

Navigation Act October, 1651 

First War with Holland 1653-1654 

Cromwell turns out Rump Parliament .... April, 1653 

Barebones Parliament July, 1653 

Instrument of Government December, 1653 

Cromwell assumes Title of Protector 1654 

Protectorate 1654-1659 

Peace with Holland . . . . 1654 

Cromwell dismisses Parliament and governs without it . . 1655-1656 
Expedition to West Indies : Capture of Jamaica . . . May, 1655 
Government by Major-generals . . . November, 1655-1657 

Summons of Parliament January, 1657 

Humble Petition and Advice February, 1657 

'J'reaty with France 1657 

Dismisses Parliament February, 1658 

Dunkirk handed over to England . . . . . . . 1658 

Death of Cromwell ....... September 3, 1658 

Richard Cromwell, Protector .... October, 1658-May, 1659 

Declaration of Charles II from Breda .... April, 1660 

Convention Parliament meets May, 1660 

Restoration of Stuarts : Charles II called back to England May 25, 1660 

Charles II 1660-1685 

AboUtion of Feudal Tenures December, 1660 

First Navigation Act . 1660 

Cavalier Parliament April, 1661-1679 

Corporation Act May, 1661 

Act of Uniformity May, 1662 

Charter of Connecticut 1662 

Charles sells Dunkirk to Louis XIV 1662 

Charter of Carolina ....,..,.. 1663 

Charter of Rhode Island 1663 

Second Navigation Act 1663 

Grant of New Netherlands to Duke of York . . . March, 1664 

Conventicle Act May, 1664 

Second War with Holland 1665-1667 

Plague and Fire of London 1666 

Close of War : Treaty of Breda July, 1667 

Fall of Clarendon 1667 

Period of the Cabal 1667-1673 

The Triple Alliance 1667 

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 1668 

Secret Treaty of Dover 1670 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 25 

Third War with Holland 1672-1674 

Declaration of Indulgence 1672 

Third Navigation Act 1672 

Test Act . 1673 

Treaty of Westminster with Holland 1674 

Marriage of Princess Mary to William of Orange .... 1677 
Titus Oates Tales of Roman Catholic Conspiracy . . . 1678-1680 

Dissolution of Cavalier Parliament 1679 

New Parliament summoned 1679 

Habeas Corpus Act 1679 

The Exclusion Bill 1679 

Parliament dissolved : New Parliament meets . . . October, 1680 

House of Lords defeats Exclusion Bill 1680 

Parliament dissolved : New Parliament elected and dissolved . 1681 

Rye House Plot . . , 1683 

Execution of Russell and Sydney 1683 

James II 1685-1688 

Rising of Argyle 1685 

Rising of Monmouth 1685 

Battle of Sedgemoor July 5, 1685 

Bloody Assizes 1685 

James claims Dispensing Power: Hale's Case 1686 

Declaration of Indulgence 1687 

Birth of Prince James June 10, 1688 

Trial of Seven Bishops June 29-30, 1688 

Letter to William of Orange June 30, 1688 

Landing of William November 5, 1688 

Flight of James December 22, 1688 

Summoning of a Convention . . . . . January 22, 1689 

William and Mary February 11, 1689 

Declaration of Right February 11, 1689 

Convention becomes a Parliament .... February 20, 1689 

Mutiny Act 1689 

Toleration Act May 24, 1689 

Declaration of War against France May, 1689 

Siege of Londonderry May- August, 1689 

Bill of Rights December, 1689 

Dissolution of Convention Parliament .... January, 1690 

Massacre of Glencoe February, 1690 

Battle of the Boyne July 1, 1690 

Peace of Limerick October, 1691 

Victory of La Hogue May 19, 1692 



26 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

Beginning of National Debt 1692 

Founding of Bank of England 1694 

Navigation Act : Board of Trade 1696 

Treaty of Ryswick 1697 

Tories in Power 1698 

First Partition Treaty 1698 

Second Partition Treaty 1700 

War with France 1701 

Act of Settlement 1701 

Death of James II September, 1701 

Parliament dissolved : New Election, Whigs in Power . November, 1701 

Anne 1702-1714 

Tories reestablished in Office 1702 

Battle of Blenheim August, 1704 

Capture of Gibraltar 1705 

Battle of Ramillies May, 1706 

Union with Scotland March, 1707 

Negotiations with Louis XIV for Peace 1709 

Battle of Malplaquet September, 1709 

Impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell March, 1710 

Dismissal of Marlborough 1711 

Peace of Utrecht . . . 1713 

George I 1714-1727 

Whigs return to Power .1714 

Riot Act July 20, 1715 

Septennial Act . April 26, 1716 

South Sea Bubble August, 1719-1720 

Beginning of Walpole's Ministry 1721 

George II 1727-1760 

John Wesley at Oxford . ' .1729 

Settlement of Georgia 1732 

Kaye invents the Flying Shuttle ........ 1733 

The Excise Bill 1733 

War of Jenkins's Ear 1739 

Wesley begins Open-air Preaching 1739 

Fall of Walpole 1741 

War of Austrian Succession 1740-1748 

Clive goes out to India 1743 

Battle of Fontenoy May 1, 1745 

Rising of Charles Edward, the Young Pretender .... 1745 

Battle of Culloden April 17, 1746 

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 1748 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 27 

Founding of Ohio Company 1749 

Clive extends British Influence in India « . . . . 1751-1752 

Black Hole of Calcutta 1754 

Treaty of Westminster with Prussia January, 1756 

William Pitt, Secretary of State, and Leader in the Cabinet . , 1757 

Battle of Plassey June, 1757 

Amherst captures Louisburg ...... July 26, 1758 

Forbes captures Fort Duquesne December 25, 1758 

Brunswick wins battle of Minden August 1, 1759 

Wolfe captures Quebec ...... September 13, 1759 

George III 1760-1820 

Capture of Pondicherry » . January, 1761 

Resignation of Pitt October, 1761 

Brindley builds First Canal . .1761 

Bute, Head of the Ministry .... May, 1762-April, i763 

Peace of Paris February 10, 1763 

Grenville, Secretary of State April 8, 1 763 

Prosecution of John Wilkes . . . . . . April 23, 1763 

The Sugar Act April, 1764 

Hargreave invents the Spinning Jenny 1764 

The Stamp Act March, 1765 

Watt invents the Steam Engine 1765 

Dismissal of Grenville ; Rockingham in Office .... July, 1765 

Repeal of the Stamp Act March 17, 1766 

Pitt-Grafton Ministry July, 1766 

Townshend Revenue Act June 29, 1767 

Tea Act July 2, 1767 

Lord North, Chancellor of Exchequer . . . September, 1767 

First Voyage of Captain Cook 1768-1771 

Wilkes elected to Parliament 1768-1769 

Letters of Junius 1769 

Grafton resigns ; North, Prime Minister . . . January 28, 1770 

Boston Massacre March 5, 1770 

Tea Riots in America 1772-1773 

Boston Port Act ; Massachusetts Government Act . March-May, 1774 
Wilkes allowed to take his Seat in Parliament ..... 1774 

Battles of Lexington and Concord April, 1775 

Declaration of American Independence .... July 4, 1776 
Surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga .... October 17, 1777 

Crompton invents the Spinning " Mule " 1779 

Armed Neutrality League against Great Britain .... 1780 
Rodney defeats Spaniards off Cape St. Vincent . . January, 1780 



28 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

Lord George Gordon Riots June, 1780 

Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown . . . October 19, 1781 

Resignation of Lord North March 20, 1782 

Rodney's Victory over De Grasse April 12, 1782 

Burke's Reform Measure passed 1782 

Treaty of Paris -Versailles January, 1783 

Coalition of Tories and Old Whigs 1783 

William Pitt, the Younger, Prime Minister . . . December, 1783 
Election of 1784 ; Overthrow of Whigs .... March, 1784 

India Regulating Act 1784 

Cartwright invents Weaving Machine 1785 

Impeachment and Trial of Hastings . . . . . . . 1787 

New South Wales settled 1788 

Meeting of the Estates-General in France 1789 

National Convention declares War against Great Britain February 1, 1793 
Voyage of Captain Vancouver . . o . . . . 1791-1795 

War of the First Coalition ....... 1792-1797 

Capture of The Cape, Ceylon, Trinidad ..... 1795-1797 

Mutiny at The Nore ....... May- June, 1797 

Naval Victory of Camperdown October, 1797 

Battle of the Nile .......... August 1, 1798 

War of the Second Coalition 1798-1801 

Act of Union with Ireland July 21, 1800 

Resignation of Pitt ; Addington Ministry . . . February, 1801 

Battle of Copenhagen April, 1801 

Peace of Amiens 1801-1803 

Return of Pitt to Office May 12, 1803 

Renewal of War May 20, 1803 

Battles of Assay e and Argaum . . September-November, 1803 

Napoleon's Attempt to invade England . . . July-August, 1805 

War of Third Coalition 1803-1807 

Battle of Trafalgar; Death of Nelson . . . October, 21, 1805 

Death of Pitt January 26, 1806 

The Berlin Decrees May 16, 1806 

First British Orders in Council January 7, 1807 

Abolition of the Negro Slave Trade March, 1807 

Bombardment of Copenhagen September, 1807 

Second British Orders in Council .... November, 1807 

The Milan Decrees November-December, 1807 

Peninsular War 1808-1814 

War with the United States 1812-1814 

Treaty of Ghent ..,.,... December 24, 1814 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 29 

First Abdication of Napoleon April, 1814 

Congress of Vienna 1814-1815 

Battle of Waterloo June, 1815 

Second Abdication of Napoleon and Exile to St. Helena June-July, 1815 

Tories in Power ; Liverpool Ministry 1815 

Corn Law 1815 

George IV 1820-1830 

Disenfranchisement of Gramponnd 1821 

Peel, Home Secretary ; Canning, Foreign Secretary . . . 1822 

Reform of Criminal Code 1822 

Trade Unions allowed 1825 

Death of Canning August 8, 1827 

Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts 1828 

Duke of Wellington, Prime Minister 1828 

Roman Catholic Emancipation Act 1829 

William IV * . 1830-1837 

Opening of Liverpool and Manchester Railroad . September, 1830 

Defeat of Tories November, 1830 

Whigs in Power ; Earl Grey, Prime Minister . 1830-1831, 1831-1834 

First Electoral Reform Act June 7, 1832 

Abolition of Negro Slavery August 28, 1833 

First Factory Act 1833 

First Grant for Public Education 1833 

Poor Law 1834 

Municipal Corporations Act 1835 

Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister 1835 

Victoria 1837-1901 

Chartist Agitation 1837 

Rebellion in Canada ......... 1837-1838 

Coronation of Victoria June 28, 1838 

Opium War with China 1839-1842 

Marriage of Victoria to Prince Albert „ . . February 10, 1840 

Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister 1841 

Annexation of Scinde 1842 

Renewal of Chartist Agitation . 1842 

Agitation for Home Rule in Ireland 1843-1846 

Repeal of the Corn Laws * . . 1846 

Annexation of the Punjab 1848-1849 

Repeal of Navigation Acts 1849 

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 1850 

Constitutional Government in South Australia and New Zealand, 1850-1851 
Crimean War 1853-1855 



30 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

Treaty of Paris 1866 

Great Mutiny in India . . 1857-1858 

Dissolution of East India Company 1858 

Death of Palmerston 1865 

Fenian Movement in Ireland 1865-1868 

Second Electoral Reform Act 1867 

Reform Ministry of Gladstone 1869-1874 

Disestablishment of Irish Church July 26, 1869 

First Irish Land Bill May, 1870 

Elementary Education Act August 9, 1870 

Alabama Case ; Geneva Tribunal Award . . . September 14, 1872 

Ministry of Disraeli 1874 

Purchase of Khedive's Shares in Suez Canal 1875 

Proclamation of Victoria, Empress of India . . January 1, 1877 

Annexation of Transvaal 1877 

Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878 

Congress of Berlin 1878 

War in Afghanistan 1878-1879 

Zulu War 1879 

Formation of Irish Land League . . . . . . . 1879 

Gladstone in Power 1880 

First Boer War 1880-1881 

Convention of Pretoria 1881 

Irish Agitation ; Coercion Act 1881 

Second Coercion Act 1882 

Battle of Tel-el-kebir in Egypt September 13, 1882 

Mahdi Revolt 1882-1898 

Third Electoral Reform Act 1884 

Death of Gordon January 26, 1885 

First Home Rule Bill introduced April 8, 1886 

Second Salisbury Ministry 1886-1892 

Irish Land Measures 1887, 1888, 1891 

Local Government Acts 1888-1894 

Gladstone in Power 1892-1894 

Second Home Rule Bill introduced .... February 13, 1893 

Third Salisbury Ministry 1895-1902 

Recovery of the Sudan April-September, 1898 

Opening of the First Australian Federal Parliament . . May, 1901 

Second Boer War 1899-1902 

Edw^ard VII, accession 1901 

Coronation of Edward VII August 9, 1902 

Proclaimed Emperor of India January 1, 1903 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 31 

Entente with France 1904 

Alliance with Japan 1905 

Conference at Algeciras 1906 

Ministry of Campbell-Bannerman 1906-1908 

Agreement with Russia 1907 

Ministry of Asquith . . . 1908-1916 

Union of South Africa 1909 

George V, accession 1910 

Coronation of George V 1911 

Constitutional Crisis 1910-1911 

Parliament Act 1911 

Agitation for Woman's Suffrage 1912-1914 

Passage of Home Rule Bill 1914 

Outbreak of the Great War July-August, 1914 

Breach of Belgian Neutrality August 3, 1914 

Great Britain enters the War August 4, 1914 

Seizure of Togoland August 27, 1914 

First Battle of the Marne .... September 6-12, 1914 

Battle of the Falkland Islands December 7, 1914 

Dardanelles Expedition .... February-December, 1915 

Sinking of Lusitania ....... May 7, 1915 

Seizure of German Southwest-Africa July, 1915 

Seizure of Kamerun February, 1916 

Battle of Verdun . . . . . . February-August, 1916 

Easter Rebellion in Ireland April-May, 1916 

Battle of Jutland May 31, 1916 

Germany's Submarine Policy .... January-February, 1917 

Occupation of Bagdad March 10, 1917 

United States enters the War April, 1917 

Lloyd George Coalition Ministry .... December, 1917 

Occupation of Jerusalem . . , . . December, 1917 

Fourth Electoral Reform Act April, 1918 

Germany's Great Drives March-July, 1918 

Allied Counter Offensive July-November, 1918 

Armistice November 11, 1918 

Seizure of German East Africa .... November 14, 1918 
General Election : Coalition Victory . . . December 14, 1918 

Treaty of Versailles June 28, 1919 

Government of India Act December, 1919 

Home Rule Bill January, 1920 

Troubles with Ireland 1920 



INDEX. 



The references are to pages. 



Acts. See Statutes. 
Admiralty, 633. 
AduUamites, 522. 
iEthelbirht, King of Kent, 9. 
.^thelred 1, king of Wessex, and the 

Danes, 22, 24. 
.ffithelred II, King of England, and 

the Danes, 53, 55. 
.ffithelstan, king of Wessex, 34. 
Afghanistan, wars in, 515, 528, 532. 
Africa, partition of, 539. 
Agents of the Overseas Dominions, 

652. 
Agincourt, battle of, 205. 
Agreement of the People, first, 366; 

second, 370. 
Agriculture, among Anglo-Saxons, 

50; during feudal times, 22, 225; 

under Elizabeth, 303-304, 324; in 

eighteenth century, 492, 493 ; 

during the Victorian era, 548. 
Aidan, 12. 
Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, in 1668, 

390 ; in 1748, 444, 446, 449. 
Alabama Case, 520. 
Albert, prince consort, 504, 520. 
Albert I, king of Belgium, 589, 613. 
Alcuin, 17. 

Alfred and Guthrum Peace, 27-28, 42. 
Alfred the Great, and the Danes, 24- 

26 ; peace of, with Guthrum, 27 

and note 2 ; work of, for Wessex, 

30-33 ; death of, 33 and note. 
Algeciras, conference at, 553. 
Allenby, Gen., captures Jerusalem, 

606 ; captures Aleppo, 614. 
Alnwick, battle of, 102. 
America, colonies in, 337, 372, 396- 

397, 431, 439-440; French and 



English in, 446-447; Braddock 
defeated in, 447 ; British victories 
in, 451 ; war in, against colonies, 
462-466 ; intervention of France 
in, 465 ; independence of colonies 
in, 467. See also United States. 

Amiens, Mise of, 131, 132 ; peace of, 
479-480 ; mentioned, 609. 

Angles, on continent, 3-4 ; migra- 
tion of, 4-5 ; settlement of, 5 ; 
tribes of, 7 note ; in Mercia, 6. 

Anglo-Saxons, early organization of, 
7-9 ; institutions and life of, in 
tenth century, 40-52. 

Anne, daughter of James II, 406, 
408 ; accession of, 425 ; position 
of, 425 ; death of, 433, 434. 

Anselm, and William Rufus, 82 ; and 
investiture struggle, 85-86. 

Argyle, uprising of, in Scotland, 399. 

Armada, Spanish, 316-318. 

Armistice of November ii, 1918, 614. 

Arms, Assize of. See Assize of Arms. 

Arthur, Count of Brittany, 112, 113. 

Arthur, King, 6 note 1. 

Ascension Island, 649. 

Ashdown, battle of, 24. 

Asquith, Herbert H., prime minister, 
559, 562 ; resignation of, 568, 600. 

Assaye, battle of, 481. 

Assiento, 431, 442. 

Assize, of Arms, 106, 142 ; of 
Clarendon, 104 ; of Northampton, 
104-105. 

Astor, Viscountess, 570. 

Attainder, 212, 213, 269 note; de- 
fined, 212 note 3. 

Augustine, introduces Christianity 
into Britain, 9 ; archbishop, 10. 



33 



34 



INDEX. 



Australia, discovery of, 467 ; settle- 
ment of, 467 ; attempt of Napoleon 
to obtain, 481 ; early history of, 
518 ; federation of colonies in, 541 ; 
mentioned, 579, 591, 616, 631, 
649; government of, 650-651. 

Austria, 583, 584, 585, 587; col- 
lapse of, 613. 

Austrian Succession, War of, 443- 
444. 

Bacon, Sir Francis, 342, 343, 348 
note 3 ; impeachment of, 343. 

Baeda (the Venerable Bede), 17, 32. 

Bahamas, the, 579, 653. 

Balfour, Arthur James, prime minis- 
ter, resigns, 554 ; and Chamber- 
lain, 555. 

Balliol, John, the elder, 144-145, 150. 

Ballot Act of 1872, 548, 641. 

Bank of England, 424, 437. 

Bannockburn, battle of, 157. 

Baptists. See Non-conformists. 

Barbadoes, 579, 653. 

Barnet, battle of, 218. 

Barons' War, 131-132. 

Bate Case, 334-335. 

Beachy Head, naval battle of, 418. 

Beaconsfield (Benjamin Disraeli), 
Earl of, 505, 509, 521, 580; and 
second Reform Bill, 522 ; ministry 
of (1874), 525; imperial policy of, 
525, 526; and the Russo-Turkish 
War, 527 ; at Congress of Berlin, 
528 ; defeat of, in 1880, 529. 

Beatty, Vice Admiral David, 592, 598. 

Becket, Thomas a, early career of, 
97 ; archbishop of Canterbury, 
97 ; and Constitutions of Claren- 
don, 98, 99 ; exile and death of, 
100-101. 

Belgium, breach of neutrality of, 
588; conquest of, 588-589; re- 
covery of, 613 ; mandate to, 616. 

Benevolences, 219, 221, 240, 342. 

Berchtold, Count, 585, 586. 

Berlin, Congress of, 528. 

Bermuda, 579, 653. 

Bethmann-Hollweg, Chancellor von, 
585, 587, 588, 601. 

Bill of Rights, 407, 410, 421. 

Bismarck, Count Otto von, 615. 



Black Death, the, 171. 

Black Prince, 168, 169, 176, 177, 

178. 

Blake, Admiral, 372, 373, 377-378. 

Blenheim, battle of, 429. 

Bloreheath, battle of, 212. 

Boards, of Trade, Education, Local 
Government, etc., 631, 634-635, 
637, 648. 

Boers, in South Africa, early relations 
with, 529; war with, 541-544; 
in Great War, 617. 

Boleyn, Anne, 253, 254, 256, 259, 
269. 

Bolingbroke (Henry St. John), Vis- 
count, 433, 434, 435, 443. 

Bookland, 48, 49. 

Book of Common Prayer, first, 270, 
271, 272; second, 276, 281, 290, 
321. 

Boroughs, 47-48 ; in Magna Carta, 
118; represented in Simon's parlia- 
ment, 134 ; represented in Model 
Parliament, 149 ; under Henry VII, 
239 ; representatives of, 409 ; re- 
forms of representation in, 497- 
501, 522, 531 ; reform of, by acts 
of 1835 and 1882, 645-646. 

Bosworth Field, battle of, 222, 233. 

Boyne, battle of, 417 ; importance 
of, 419. 

Breda, declaration of, 382 ; treaty 
of, 388-389. 

Brest-Litovsk, peace of, 603. 

Bretigny, treaty of, 169. 

Bright, John, 507-508, 519, 534. 

British Empire, 579-581 ; on the 
eve of the Great War, 581-582; 
after the Great War, 615-617; 
government of, 623-656. 

Bruce, Robert, the elder, 144-146; 
the younger, 156, 157. 

Brunanburh, battle of, 34. 

Buckingham (George Villiers), Duke 
of. 338, 341, 344-345, 346, 348. 

Budget, of 1909, 558; of 1920, 571. 

Bulgaria, 583, 584, 613, 615 note. 

Burgh. See Boroughs. 

Burghley (William Cecil), Lord, 
Elizabeth's secretary, 290 ; foreign 
policy of, 292-295, 296-297, 299; 
attitude of, toward Scotland, 296; 



INDEX. 



35 



economic policy of, 302-303 ; 
attack of, on Roman Catholics, 
306-308; and execution of Mary 
Stuart, 318; 'and persecution of 
the Puritans, 322; death of, 318, 
323. 

Burke, Edmund, 469, 471, 473, 474. 

Burns, John, 535, 630, 637 note. 

Bute, Lord, 453, 457. 

Cabinet, germ of, 391, 398; under 
William III, 420-421 ; growth of, 
under George I, 435-436 ; after 
treaty of Paris (1763), 453-454; 
government by, established, 506 ; 
place of, in the British system of 
government, 635-639. 

Cabot, John, 242. 

Cade, Jack, rebellion of, 209-210. 

Calais, 167, 208, 235, 294; loss of 
(1557), 285, 286. 

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 
prime minister, 554 ; mentioned, 
636 note. 

Camperdown, naval battle of, 475. 

Campo Formio, treaty of, 478. 

Canada, 517, 518, 579, 581, 591, 616, 
631, 649 ; government of, 650. 

Canning, George, leader of moderate 
Tories, 495 ; supports Catholic 
emancipation, 497. 

Cape Colony, taken from the Dutch, 
475; mentioned, 581, 651. 

Cape St. Vincent, naval battle of, 
475. 

Carson, Sir Edward, 555, 573, 637 
note. 

Casement, Sir Roger, 566. 

Casket Letters, 301. 

Castlereagh, Lord, 487, 494, 495. 

Cateau Cambresis, treaty of, 294. 

Catherine of Aragon, marriage of, 
with Prince Arthur, 243 ; be- 
trothed to Prince Henry (VIII), 
243 ; marriage of, with Henry, 
249, 251; divorce of, 252-254; 
death of, 259. 

Catholics, Roman. See Church, Ro- 
man Catholic. 

Cavalier Parliament, 385-387, 389. 

Cavendish, Lord Frederick, murder 
of, 531. 



Cecil, William. See Burghley. 

Celts, Brythonic, 1 ; victory of, at 
Mt. Badon, 6; defeat of, at 
Bedford and Deorham, 6 ; at 
Chester, 6; Christianity among, 11. 

Celts, Gaelic, 1. 

Ceylon, taken from the Dutch, 475 ; 
mentioned, 579, 654. 

Chamberlain, Joseph, 529, 530, 555, 
582, 646. 

Channel Islands, 208, 630, 649. 

Charles Edward, the young pre- 
tender, 445. 

Charles I, and Spanish marriage, 
339, 341 ; marries French princess, 
341, 344 ; descent of, 343-344 ; ac- 
cession of, 344 ; struggle of, with 
parliament, 344-348 ; personal rule 
of, 348-354 ; political views of, 348- 
349 ; financial measures of, 351- 
352 ; tries to force episcopacy on 
Scotland, 352-353 ; summons par- 
liament, 353-354 ; signs death 
warrant of Strafford, 355 ; attempts 
to arrest five members, 358-359 ; 
and militia, 360 ; opens civil war, 
360 ; negotiations of, with parlia- 
ment, 364, 366 ; flight of, 366 ; exe- 
cution of, 368-369. 

Charles II, proclaimed king in Scot- 
land, 370, 371 ; defeat and flight 
of, 372 ; leaves France, 378 ; called 
back to England as king, 382 ; 
character of reign of, 383 ; and 
parliament, 387 ; and Dutch war, 
388-389; revenue of, 384-385, 
389-390 , treaty with Louis XIV, 
390 ; policy of, thwarted by parlia- 
ment, 392 ; supports Duke of York, 
394, 395; victorious over Shaftes- 
bury, 394-395: death of, 396; 
colonial policy of, 396 ; commerce 
under, 397 , legislation under, 398. 

Charter, of Henry I, 83-84, 116; of 
Stephen, 88, of Henry II, 93; 
Magna Carta, 117-120; confirma- 
tion of Magna Carta, 121, 125, 129 ; 
confirmation of the charters, 154- 
155. 
Chartist movement, 506-507, 511. 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 170. 
Church, Celtic, 11-15. 



36 



INDEX. 



Church, English, in Kent, 9-10 ; in 
Northumbria and Wessex, 10 ; con- 
flict of, with Ionian church, 13-14 ; 
influence of, in early England, 16- 
17 ; under Alfred the Great, 31 ; 
under Dunstan, 38-39 ; under Cnut, 
58-59; under William I, 78-80, 
81 ; under Henry I, 85-86 ; under 
Stephen, 91 ; claims of, under 
Henry II, 99-100 ; quarrel of, with 
John, 114-115; provisions regard- 
ing, in Magna Carta, 117; under 
Henry III, 123, 125, 126, 127; 
under Edward I, 143-144 ; repre- 
sented in Model Parliament, 149 ; 
attack on, by Edward I, 150-151 ; 
condition of, in 1300, 160, 161 ; 
attack on, by parliament, 179-180 ; 
Wiclif and, 181-182 ; under Rich- 
ard II, 192-193 ; under Henry IV, 
200-201 ; attack on, by Henry 
VIII, 255-257; English church 
removed from under jurisdiction 
of Rome, 256. 

Church, Roman Catholic, struggle 
of, against Protestantism in Eng- 
land, 288, 305-308 ; work of Jesuits 
for, 311-313; connection of, with 
Gunpowder Plot, 333-334; atti- 
tude of Charles II toward, 390; 
and Titus Oates's tales, 393-394; 
supports Charles II, 395 ; under 
James II, 400; and Toleration Act, 
410; in Ireland, 418, 476, 477; 
political emancipation of members 
of, 496-497; 509-510; members 
of, admitted to Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, 524. 

Church of England, 290-292, 309 ; or- 
ganization of, compared with that 
of Puritans, 320-321 ; after 1603, 
329; high church party of, 349; 
church party in Long Parliament, 
358 ; withdrawal of, from Long 
Parliament, 358, 364 ; views of, 
361 ; under Charles II, 385-386 ; 
and Test Act, 392; upholds 
Charles II, 395 ; effect of Revolu- 
tion of 1688 upon, 409-410. 

Civil list, the, 421, 641 note. 

Civil War, causes of, 360-361 ; oppos- 
ing forces in, 361-362 ; opening of 



AA^ar, 362-363 ; second period, 364, 
366-368. 

Civil wars. See Stephen; Barons' 
War; Roses, Wafs of. 

Clarendon, Assize of. See Assize. 

Clarendon (Edward Hyde), Earl of, 
356 ; becomes chancellor, 386 ; 
code of, 386 ; fall of, 389. 

Clarendon Code, the, .386. 

Clemenceau, Georges, 607, 608, 
614. 

Clive, Lord, 450-451. 

Cluniac reforms under Dunstan, 38. 

Cnut (Canute), King of England, 
56 ; attitude of, toward England, 
56 ; ealdormanries of, 56-57 ; 
government and law of, 57-58 ; 
and church, 58-59 ; successors of, 
59-60. 

Coalition, ministry and party, 570. 

Cobden, Richard, 507. 

Coinage, debasement of, by Henry 
VIII, 267; by Edward VI, 277; 
reform of, by Elizabeth, 302. 

Coke, Sir Edward, 342, 346. 

Colet, John, 246, 247. 

Colonial Policy, see Colonies; of 
Napoleon, 481. 

Colonies, Plymouth, 323 ; Virginia, 
337 ; reduction of, by parliamen- 
tarians, 372 ; new colonies estab- 
lished by Charles II, 396-397; 
after Utrecht, 431 ; under Walpole, 
439-440 ; policy toward, in 
America, 459-462 ; war of Ameri- 
can, for independence, 462-466 ; 
France aids the, in America, 465 ; 
independence of, in America, 467 ; 
new colonies in the Pacific, 467- 
468 ; acquired in wars with 
France and Napoleon, 475, 491 ; 
position of, after 1815, 517 ; policy 
toward, 1815-1830, 518; after 
1830, 518-519, 525, 580-581; in 
Africa, 539, 541. 

Colonies, Crown (1920), 579, 623, 
653-654. 

Colonization, early attempts at, 242, 
324. 

Columba, St., 11, 12, 13. 

Commerce. See Trade and Com- 
merce; Treaties, Commercial. 



INDEX. 



37 



Commons, House of, beginnings of, 
164-165 ; impeaches Richard 
Lyons, 178 ; under Richard II, 
191-192; under Henry VII, 239- 
240 ; composition of, under Eliza- 
beth and James I, 309-310, 329; 
" Apology " of, 334; and Petition 
of Right, 346-347 ; in 1629, 347 ; 
resists Charles I, 347-348, 359; 
and militia bill, 360 ; purged by 
Col. Pride, 368 ; under William III, 
421 ; and Act of Settlement, 433 ; 
causes for growing importance of, 
under Hanoverians, 436-437, 441 ; 
and John Wilkes, 457-459 ; cor- 
ruption in, 45S, 466, 469-470; 
early reforms in, 468-469 ; and 
Pitt, the younger, 471 ; Irish mem- 
bers in, for first time, 477 ; prime 
minister and cabinet in, 506 ; 
rejects further reform (1837), 506; 
Irish home rulers in, 530 ; debate 
in, on Home Rule Bill, 536 ; power 
of, over legislation, 561, 565; pay- 
ment of members of, 562 ; sur- 
vivals in, 626 ; procedure in, 644 ; 
general account of (1920), 640- 
645. See also Parliament. 

Congregationalists. See Independ- 
ents. 

Conservatives (Unionists) , position 
of, under Victoria, 505-506 ; and 
repeal of the corn laws, 509 ; new 
party, 521-522 ; pass second Re- 
form Bill, 522; in power (1874), 
525; defeated in 1880, 529; in 
power (1885), 533; in power 
(1886), 534; position of, in 1900, 
537 ; victories in elections of 1900, 
544; defeated, 1906, 555; in- 
fluence of, in House of Lords, 557 ; 
in Coalition ministry, 568, 569 ; 
victory of, as Coalition Unionists 
(1918), 570. 

Constitutions of Clarendon, 98-100. 

Convention, of 1659, 384-385; of 
1689, 406, 418, 421. 

Cook, Capt. James, voyages of, 467. 

Copenhagen, battle of, 479. 

Corn Laws, 495, 496 ; repeal of, 507- 
509. 

Coroner, 105, 120, 133. 



Council, Privy, 238, 310, 313, 349, 

350, 351, 420; organization and 

work of (1920), 624-631. 
Council of the King (ordinary), and 

William I, 75 ; under Henry I, 86 ; 

as developed under Henry VII, 

237-239. 
Council of the North, 260, 266, 310, 

349, 356. 

Council of Wales, 266, 310, 356. 
Court of Exchequer, 86, 95, 119, 141, 

335, 352. 
Court of High Commission, 322, 349, 

350, 356. 
Courtrai, battle of, 155. 

Courts, under Henry I, 86 ; under 
Henry II, 95, 104-105 ; of church 
under Edward I, 143-144 ; devel- 
opment of, under Edward I, 141 ; 
manorial, 174, 224 ; of Star Cham- 
ber, 238, 349, 350, 356; of poor 
men's causes, 238-239. See also 
Hundred Court, Shire Court, Curia 
Regis, Star Chamber. 

Covenant, Scottish, 353, 362, 371. 

Craft Gilds. See Gild, Craft. 

Cranmer, Thomas, 255, 256, 259, 281, 
284. 

Crecy, battle of, 168. 

Crimean War. 513-515. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 358 ; raises troops, 
362, 363 ; reorganizes Eng- 
lish arm.y, 363-364 ; upholds cause 
of army, 365, 366 ; and the army, 
370; battles of, in Ireland, 370- 
371 ; in Scotland, 371-372 ; ex- 
periments of. in government, 374- 
376, 379-380; work of, as pro- 
tector, 376-379; treaty of, with 
France, 378 ; tries government of 
major-generals, 379-380 ; rejects 
title of King, 380; conflict of, 
with republicans, 380 ; death of, 
380-381 ; place of, in history, 
381 ; body of, hanged at Ty- 
burn, 384. 

Cromwell, Richard, 381-382. 

Cromwell, Thomas, policy of, 255, 
257, 261-264 ; fall of, 264-265. 

Crusade, third, 106, 108, 109; 
last, participated in, by Edward I, 
135-136. 



38 



INDEX. 



Culloden, battle of, 445. 

Curia Regis (King's court), 86, 95, 

119, 141. 
Cyprus, 579, 616, 654. 

Danby (Thomas Osborne), Earl of, 
393, 394, 404. 

Dane geld, origin of, 42-43 ; paid 
by ^thelred II, 54-55 ; levy of, 
by Cnut, 59; levy of, by Wil- 
liam I, 76-77 ; under Henry II, 
95, 106; under Edward I, 147 
note. 

Danelaw, 28, 59. 

Danes, first coming of, 21-22 ; at- 
tack of, on Wessex, 23 ; peace 
of, with Alfred, 27; effects of 
first conquest of, 28-30 ; second 
coming of, 53-54 ; influence of, 
in eleventh century, 59. 

Dardanelles expedition (1915), 592- 
594. 

Darien expedition (1698), 432. 

Declaration of Independence. See 
Independence. 

Declaration of Indulgence. See In- 
duhjence. 

Declaration of Right, 407, 421. 

Declaration against Transubstantia- 
tion, 629. 

Deorham, battle of, 6. 

Derby (Henry of Lancaster), Earl 
of. See Henry IV. 

Dettingen, battle of, 444. 

De Valera, Eamon, 572. 

Disraeli, Benjamin. See Beacons- 
field, Earl of. 

Dissenters. See Non-conformists. 

Divine right, the doctrine of, 331, 
410. 

Domesday Book, 77-78. 

Dover, treaty of, 390. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 313, 315, 316, 
317. 

Drives, German, in 1918, 608-611. 

Dunbar, battle of, 372. 

Dunstan, reforms of, 38-39. 

Durbar, at Delhi, in 1877, 526; in 
1903, 545; in 1911, 556. 

Eadgar, king of Wessex, 36-39. 
Eadmund, king of Wessex, 34, 36. 



Eadward the Confessor, king of 
England, 60-61. 

Eadward the Elder, king of Wessex, 
34. 

Eadwine, king of Northumbria, 10. 

Ealdorman, 44. 

East India Company, 336, 337, 
425 ; abolition of, 516 ; trade of, 
with China, 516-517. 

Ecgbert, king of Wessex, 18, 19. 

Edgehill, battle of, 362. 

Edinburgh, treaty of, 296, 297. 

Edington, battle of, 26. 

Edward I, as prince aids his father, 
Henry III, 132; defeats Simon 

, de Montfort at Evesham, 135 ; 
crusade of, 135-136 ; crowned 
king, 136; character of, 136; 
reforms and legislation of, 136- 
1.38, 139-144; and Wales, 138- 
139 ; and Scotland, 144-146, 150, 
155-156; and church, 143-144; 
quarrel of, with France, 146, 
155 ; revenue of, 147 ; parlia- 
ment of. 148-149 ; attack of, on 
barons, 151-153 ; death of, 156. 

Edward II, defeat of, at Bannock- 
burn, 157 ; misgovernment of, 
157-159 ; death of, 158. 

Edward III, accession of, 158, 159 ; 
character of reign of, 161 ; begins 
Hundred Years' War with France, 
162, 168-170 ; interest of, in trade, 
and commerce, 163-167 ; parlia- 
ment under, 164-165 ; position of, 
in 1360, 170; last years of, 176- 
183. 

Edward IV, 214 ; proclaimed king, 
214; dismisses Warwick, 215; 
foreign and commercial policy of, 
218-220 ; death of, 220. 

Edward V, 220 ; death of, 221. 

Edward VI, 259, 267; accession of, 
to the throne, 268 ; reign of, 268- 
277 ; death of, 277.. 

Edward VII, as Prince of Wales, 525 ; 
accession of, 550 ; coronation of, 
550 ; influence of, 550-551 ; death 
of, 559; mentioned, 620, 627 
notes, 641 note. 

Edward the Black Prince. See 
Black Prince. 



INDEX. 



39 



Egypt, Great Britain in, 532-533, 
540-541, 654; mentioned, 579, 
581, 606, 616; proposed inde- 
pendence of, 617-618. 

Elections, of 1900, 544; of 1906, 
555 ; of 1910, 559 ; of 1918, 568. 

Electoral Reform Bill. See Fran- 
cJvhss 

Eliot, Sir John, 347, 348, 349. 

Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VTII, 
birth of, 256 ; accession of, 286 ; dif- 
ficult position of, abroad, 286-289 ; 
position at home, 289 ; advisers of, 
289 ; suitors of, 294, 295, 296, 297, 
299, 308, 311, 314; prosperity of 
England under, 301-305 ; shifting 
diplomacy of, 310-311 ; aids the 
Flemish, 311 ; plots against, 306- 
308, 313-316; and Mary Stuart, 
315-316; and Puritans, 319-320, 
322-323 ; last years and death of, 
323-324 ; greatness of her era, 
324-325. 

Encircling policy, 552-554, 587. 

Enclosures, beginning of, 224-226 ; 
attempt to check, 242 ; and Rett's 
rebellion, 272-273; attitude of 
Northumberland toward, 277 ; in 
days of Elizabeth, 304, 324 ; after 
1780, 493. 

Erasmus, Desiderius, 246, 247. 

Evesham, battle of, 135. 

Exchequer, Court of. See Court of 
Exchequer. 

Exclusion Bill, 394, 395. 

Factory legislation, need of, 493 ; 
attempts at, 505 ; later, 537-538. 

Falkirk, battle of, 156. 

Falkland Islands, battle of, 592. 

Feudalism, under Anglo-Saxons, 64, 
65 ; introduction of, by William the 
Conqueror, 72-74 ; under William 
Rufus, 80-81, 82; under Stephen, 
91, 92; effect of scutage on, 96- 
97 ; struggle of feudal lords 
against Henry II, 101-104, 108; 
in Magna Carta, 117, 118; Ed- 
ward I's attack on, 1-36-138; 
waning importance of, 148, 161 ; 
and statute of Quia Emptores, 
152, 153 ; character of, under 



Edward III, 167, 168, 170; end 
of, as political influence, 222 ; 
last levies of feudal aids, 241 ; 
revival of knighthood fines by 
Charles I, 351 ; feudal fees for- 
bidden by Long Parliament, 356 ; 
abolition of feudal tenures, 384, 
385, 641 note. 

Flambard, Ranulf, 81, 84. 

Foch, Gen. Ferdinand, 589, 609, 611. 

Folkland, 8, 48. 

Folkmot, 8. 

Fox, Charles James, 470, 471, 474, 
484. 

Franchise, defined in 1429, 204 ; as 
exercised in 1688, 409 ; reform of, 
hi 1832, 497-501 ; in 1867, 522 ; in 
1884, 531 ; extension of, demanded 
by Chartists, 507 ; reform bill 
of 1912, 563; of 1918, 566-567, 
641. 

Francis Ferdinand, archduke, as- 
sassination of, 584. 

Free trade, established (1842-1846), 
508-509 ; agitation against, 555. 

French, Gen. Sir John, 589, 595. 

French Revolution, of 1789, 474 ; of 
1830, 499; of 1848, 511. 

Friars, 128-129. 

Froissart, 170. 

Gag laws, 495. 

Gaunt, John of, 176, 177, 178, 183, 
186, 190, 191, 194. 

George I, succession of, 433, 434 ; in- 
fluence of, 436 ; death of; 442. 

George II, accession of, 442 ; death 
of, 452. 

George III, accession of, 452 ; policy 
of, 452, 453 ; dismisses Pitt, 453 ; 
dismisses Grenville, 460 ; recalls 
Pitt, 460, 461 ; actual ruler, 463 ; 
and the coalition of 1783, 470 ; at- 
tempt to kill, 476 ; opposes Roman 
Catholic emancipation, 477, 496 ; 
gives up title, king of France, 480 ; 
after 1815, 493 ; death of, 495. 

George V, accession and coronation 
of, 555 ; loyalty to, 619 ; influence 
of, 628; position of, as king, 626; 
declaration of, 629 note ; civil list 
of, 641 note. 



40 



INDEX. 



Germany, and the Great War, 585- 
587 ; defeat of, 614-615. 

Gesithas, 8, 9. 

Ghent, peace of, 486. 

Gibraltar, capture of, 429 ; de- 
fence of, 466 ; mentioned, 579, 
654. 

Gild, merchant, 166, 226; craft, 
166, 226, 227, 304. 

Gladstone, William Ewart, first 
appearance of, in parliament, 
502 ; ministries of, 505 ; atti- 
tude of, toward Civil War in 
America, 519 ; first reform min- 
istry of, 523-525; attitude of, 
toward foreign affairs, 525, 532 ; 
on Bulgarian atrocities, 527 ; and 
Reform Bill of 1884, 531; and 
Home Rule, 533-536; attack 
of, on House of Lords, 558 ; men- 
tioned, 628 note, 636. 

Glencoe, massacre of, 416. 

Godwine, Earl, 57 ; and the suc- 
cession after the death of Cnut, 
60; outlawed, 61 ; death of, 61. 

Good Parliament, 177-178. 

Gordon, Gen. Charles G. (" Chi- 
nese "), 532, 533. 

Goschen, Sir W. E., 587. 

Grand Remonstrance, the, 357, 358 ; 
main author of, 359. 

Grey, Charles, second Earl Grey, 
500. 

Grey, Sir Edward, 562, 587. 

Grey, Lady Jane, 277, 278, 283. 

Grosseteste, Robert, bishop of Lin- 
coln, 129. 

Gunpowder Plot, 332-334. 

Hague Tribunal, the, 540. 

Haig, Gen. Sir Douglas, .595, 605. 

Halidon Hill, battle of, 162. 

Hampden, John, 352, 359, 362. 

Hanover, 433, 444, 448 ; separa- 
tion of, from English crown, 505. 

Harley. See Oxford, Earl of. 

Harold, Earl, 60; outlawed, 61; 
work of, as earl, 61-63 ; king of 
England, 64 ; and William the 
Conqueror, 66-68 ; defeat of, at 
Stamford Bridge, 68; at Hast- 
ings, 69. 



Hastings, battle of, 68, 69. 
Hastings, Warren, 473, 478. 
Heads of Proposals, 366. 
Heathfield, battle of, 10. 
Henderson, Arthur, 608, 639 note 
2 

Henry I, charter of, 83, 84, 116; 
marriage of, 84 ; conquers Nor- 
mandy, 84 ; investiture struggle 
under, 85, 86 ; administration un- 
der, 86. 

Henry H, fiefs of, 90 ; accession of, 
91 ; character and reforms of, 93- 
94 ; administration under, 94, 95 
quarrel with Becket, 97-101 
feudal reaction against, 101-104 
and Ireland, 107, 108 ; defeat and 
death, 108. 

Henry HI, accession of, 121 ; charac- 
ter of, 123 ; marriage connections 
of, 124, 125 ; government of, 126- 
129 ; and the barons, 129-132. 

Henry IV, as Earl of Derby, 191, 194 ; 
accession of, 195; position and 
character of, 198 ; conspiracies 
against, 199, 200 ; church under, 
200-202 ; death of, 202. 

Henry V, character of, 202 ; and Lol- 
lards, 202, 203 ; parliament under, 
203, 204; continues Hundred 
Years' War, 204-206; death of, 
206. 

Henry VI, misrule under, 208-209; 
insanity of, 211 ; recovery of, 211- 
212; restoration of, 218; death 
of, 281. 

Henry VII, as Earl of Richmond, 
wins battle of Bosworth Field, 221, 
222 ; proclaimed king, 222 ; char- 
acter and claims of, 231-232; 
conspiracies against, 235-236 ; gov- 
ernment of, 237-240 ; methods of, 
to raise money, 240-241 ; atti- 
tude of, toward commerce, agri- 
culture, and colonization, 241- 
243 ; foreign relations of, 243-244 ; 
death of, 245. 

Henry VIII, as Prince of Wales, 243 ; 
as king, 245 ; character of, 245 ; 
and Oxford reformers, 247-248 ; 
foreign relations of, 249-250 ; cir- 
cumstances leading to divorce of, 



INDEX. 



41 



from Catherine of Aragon, 252- 
253 ; attack of, on the clergy, 
255 ; assumes title of Supreme 
Head, 255 ; persecutions of, 257- 
259 ; marries Jane Seymour, 259 ; 
attitude of, toward dogma, 259, 
264 ; dissolves monasteries, 261- 
264; marries Anne of Cleves, 
265 ; relations of, with France, 
Scotland, Wales, Ireland, 265- 
266; influence of, 267-268; later 
marriages of, 269 ; instructions of, 
271. 

Hereward, 72. 

Hide, S. 

Hindenburg, Gen. von, 605, 608. 

Hindenburg Line, the, 605, 606, 
612. 

Holland, first, war between England 
and, 373; second war, 388-389; 
in triple alliance, 390 ; third war 
between England and, 391-392. 
See also Netherlojids. 

Holy League, the, 249. 

Home Rule in Ireland, early agita- 
tion for, 510 ; Gladstone's meas- 
ures for, 533, 535; act of 1914, 
563-564; bill of 1920, 564, 571, 
572-573. 

Howards, family of, struggle of, 
with the Seymours, 268-269. 

Hubert de Burgh, justiciar under 
Henry III, 125, 126. 

Hundred, 45. 

Hundred Court, 37, 45, 48, 57-58. 

Hundred Rolls, 137. 

Hundred Years' War, 162-170, 176, 
204-206; causes of, 162-163 ; close 
of, 206-208. 

Huskisson, William, 495 ; reform 
measures of, 496. 

Hyde, Edward. See Clarendon, Earl 
of. 

Impeachment, 191, 208; definition 
of, 212 note 3; of Sir Francis 
Bacon, 343 ; of Buckingham, 345 ; 
of Strafford and Laud, 355 ; of five 
members by Charles I, 359 ; of 
Clarendon, 389 ; of Bolingbroke, 
Ormond, and Oxford, 435 ; of War- 
ren Hastings, 473. | 



Imperial conferences, 581, 619. 
Independence, Declaration of, 

of American Colonies, 464. 

Independents (Separatists) , views 
of, 321-322; persecution of, 322- 
323; flight of (Pilgrims) to 
America, 323 ; in Long Parlia- 
ment. 362, 364, 365 ; dominance 
of, in army, 365 ; in Rump Parlia- 
ment, 368 ; control House of Com- 
mons, 368 ; in Barebones Parlia- 
ment, 374-375 ; in parliament of 
1654, 379. 

India, 33 ; East India Company in, 
336, 337, 373; extension of Eng- 
lish power in, 446 ; victory of 
Clive in, 450-451 ; losses of 
French in, 451 ; changes in gov- 
ernment of, 470, 472, 473; War- 
ren Hastings in, 473 ; trade route 
to, 513, 515, 527; Great Mutiny 
in, 515-516 ; under control of 
British government, 516 ; ad- 
ministration after 1872, 525-527; 
change of capital in, 557 ; un- 
rest in, 581 ; government of 
(1920), 579, 618, 652-653. 

Indulgence, acts and declarations 
of, Charles II, 392; James II, 
402-403. 

Industry, revolution in, in fifteenth 
century, 226-227; under Eliza- 
beth, 302, 303-304; under Wil- 
liam III, 424 ; revolution at close 
of eighteenth century, 491-493 ; 
effects of, 493 ; affected by the 
Civil AVar in United States, 520; 
in legislation, 537-538. See also 
Gild, craft. 

Inquest, introduction of, by Nor- 
mans, 77 ; first application of, in 
matters of justice, 104-105; of 
freehold tenure, 105-106 ; arms, 
106 ; taxation, 107 ; in Magna 
Carta, 119-120; use of, by John, 
133. 

Instrument of Government, 375, 
376, 379. 

Investiture struggle, 84-86. 

lona, 11, 12, 13, 22. 

Ireland, 11, 22 ; attempted conquest 
of, by Henry II, 107-108; and 



42 



INDEX. 



Ireland (continued). 

Poynings' law, 286 note 3 ; condi- 
tion of, under Henry VIII, 266 ; 
rebellion of O'Neil in, 301 ; rebel- 
lion of Fitzgeralds, 306, 309; 
during last years of Elizabeth, 
323 ; settlement of Protestants 
in, 337; Wentworth in, 349- 
350 ; Cromwell's policy toward, 
370-371, 376; Tyreonnel in, 402; 
uprising in, in favor of James II, 
416-417 ; Roman ■ Catholics in, 
418 ; economic position of, 433 ; 
union of, with England, 476- 
477; famine in, 508, 510 note; 
Tithe War in, 510 ; early agita- 
tion for Home Rule in, 510 ; 
Land League in, 530 ; Home 
Rule measures for, 533-534, 535- 
536 ; conciliatory measures for, 
534 ; trouble with, over con- 
scription, 609-610 ; situation in, 
in 1914, 564-565; Easter rebel- 
lion in (1916), 566; situation in, 
in 1920, 571-574. 

Italy, enters the Great War, 597; 
successes, 599 ; defeat, 607 ; final 
victory, 613. 

Itinerant justices, under Henry II, 
95, 104-105, 106 ; instructions to, 
105 note 2 ; under Richard I, 111 ; 
in Magna Carta, 119. 

Jacobites, 418, 419; uprising (1715), 
434-435; uprising (1745), 445. 

James, the old pretender, 428, 433, 
434, 435. 

James I (VI of Scotland), birth of, 
300; and Ruthven raid, 314; dis- 
inheritance of, 315 ; succession 
of, to English throne, 330 ; char- 
acter of, 330-331 ; attitude of, 
toward Puritans, 332 ; and Roman 
Catholics, 332-333 ; foreign policy 
of, 335-336; attitude of, toward 
commerce and colonization, 336- 
337; Spanish policy of, 338- 
339 ; and Spanish marriage, 339, 
341 ; quarrels with his parlia- 
ment, 334-335, 341-343; results 
of rule of, 343. 

James II, and Test Act, 392, 401 ; 



marries Mary of Modena, 393 ; 
and Exclusion Bill, 394 ; acces- 
sion of, 398 ; character of, 398 ; 
uprisings against, 399-400 ; 
Roman C'atholic policy of, 400- 
403 ; birth of a son to, 404 ; and 
Revolution of 1688, 405; flees 
from England, 406 ; loses battle 
of Boyne, 417 ; death of, 428. 

Jameson raid, the, 542. 

Japan, relations of, with Great 
Britain, 551-552 ; enters the Great 
War, 593. 

Jeffries, chief justice, 400. 

Jellicoe, Adm. Sir John, 598. 

Jenkins's Ear, War of, 443. 

Jesus, Society of, founding of, 288 ; 
work of, 288 ; leaders and labors 
of, in England, 312-313 ; measures 
against, 313, 314-315. 

Jews, 148 and note 1. 

Joan of Arc, 207. 

John, King, 107 ; revolt of, against 
Richard I, 110; character of, 112; 
evil conduct of, 112-113; loses 
fiefs in France, 113-114; and 
church, 114-115; attempt of, to 
recover French fiefs, 115; signs 
Magna Carta, 116; death of, 
120. 

John of Gaunt. See Gaunt, John of. 

Justiciar, established by William I, 
75 ; under Henry I, 86 ; under 
Henry II, 94 ; under Richard I, 
109, 110; under Henry III, 125, 
126 ; abolition of, 138 note 3. 

Jutes, home of, 3 note 1 ; settle- 
ments of, 5 ; tribes of, 7 note. 

Jutland, battle of, 597-598. 

Kamerun, 593, 616. 

Kent, Christianity in, 9. 

Kett's rebellion, 272. 

Killiecrankie, battle of, 416. 

King, early position of, 7 ; in tenth 
century, 40-42 ; powers of, under 
William I, 74 ; abolition of office 
of, 369 ; present position of, in 
the British empire, 626-629. 

King's Court. See Curia Regis. 

Kitchener, Lord, 540, 542, 590 
note. 



INDEX. 



43 



Knight of Shire, 96-97; definition 
of, 133-144 ; Edward I and, 137- 
138; in Model Parliament, 149; 
joins burgesses, 164-165 ; in Good 
Parliament, 177, 178 ; in 1406, 204 ; 
later history of, as country squires, 
304, 324. 

Knox, John, 295, 297. 

Kruger, Paul, 541. 

La Hogue, victory of, 419. 

Laissez faire, doctrine of, 493, 518, 
521. 

Land League, Irish, 530. 

Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 78-79 ; death of, 81. 

Langland, William, 180. 

Laud, Archbishop, 349 ; policy of, 
350-351,386. 

Laws, of Anglo-Saxon kings, 32-33, 
41, 42, 57-58. See also Assize; 
Statutes. 

Lewes, battle of, 132. 

Liberal imperialists, 537. 

Liberals, reforms passed by, 502 ; 
position of, under Victoria, 505- 
506 ; and repeal of corn laws, 
509-510 ; long tenure of power, 
510; new party, 521-522; in 
power, 523, 529-533, 533-534, 
535; defeat of, in 1895, 536; 
position of, 1895-1900, 537, 544. 

Liberal unionists, 534. 

Limerick, peace of, 418. 

Lincoln, battle of, 89. 

Literature, under Alfred the Great, 
31-32 ; Anglo-Saxon, 51-52 ; under 
Edward III, 170 ; in latter part of 
Elizabeth's reign, 325 ; in early 
nineteenth century, 512. 

Little Englanders, 537. 

Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, 132, 135 ; 
defeated by Edward I, 139. 

Lloyd George, David, 562 ; budget 
of, 558 ; prime minister, 568, 
570 ; secretary of state for war, 
590 note ; introduces Home Rule 
Bill (1920), 572-573; minister of 
munitions, 598. 

Loanland, 49-50. 

Local Government Act, of 1888, 647 ; 
of 1894, 648. 



Lollards, under Richard II, 188-189 ; 
under Henry IV, 200-202 ; under 
Henry V, 202-203. 

London, city of, 647 note, 648. 

Londonderry, siege of, 417 ; men- 
tioned, 573. 

Long Parliament, 354-359, 368. 

Lords, House of, 164, 165, 178 
abolition of, 369 ; revival of, 380 
acts in Revolution of 1688, 406 
position of, in 1688, 409 ; under 
William III, 421 ; defeats Fox's 
bill, 470 ; opposes Roman Catholic 
emancipation, 496, and passes 
bill for it, 497 ; rejects Home Rule 
Bill, 536; reform of, 558-559, 
561, 640; description of, 639- 
640. 

Lord High Chancellor, 632 and note, 
639. 

Lusitania, sinking of, 597. 

Magna Carta, events leading to 
signing of, 116 ; provisions of, 117- 
120 ; attempt to revoke, 120 ; con- 
firmation of, 121, 125, 139. 

Mahdi, appearance of, 532-533 ; 
overthrow of followers of, 540- 
541. 

Major-generals, rule of, 379-380. 

Majuba Hill, battle of, 532. 

Maiden, battle of, 54. 

Malplaquet, battle of, 430. 

Malta, question of, in treaty of 
Amiens, 480, 482 ; government of, 
653 note. 

Man, Isle of, 630, 649. 

Manorial system, 171-174; effects 
of Black Death upon, 174-175; 
changes in, 222, 223, 273. 

Manufactures. See Industry. 

Margaret, Maid of Norway, 144. 

Markievicz, Countess, 570. 

Marlborough (James Churchill), 
Duke of, 405, 418 ; under Anne, 
425; victories, 428-430; fall of, 
430-431. 

Marne, first battle of, 589 ; second 
battle of, 611. 

Marston Moor, battle of, 362-363. 

" Martin Marprelate," controvers3^ 
322. 



44 



INDEX. 



Marton, battle of, 24. 

Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, 

251 ; declared illegitimate, 257 ; 
under Edward VI, 276 ; accession 
of, 279, 280 ; character of reign of, 
279-280 ; periods of reign of, 280- 
286 ; marriage of, 281-282 ; perse- 
cutions of, 283-284; death of, 
286. 

Mary, daughter of James, Duke 
of York, 394, 407, 408. 

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, birth 
of, 266 ; proposed marriage of, to 
Edward VI, 266, 275 ; betrothal of, 
to Francis II of France, 275 ; queen 
of France, 294 ; end of reign as 
queen of France, 298-297 ; title 
of, to English throne, 294-295; 
return of, to Scotland, 297-298; 
marries Darnley, 300 ; connec- 
tion of, with Darnley' s death, 
300-301 ; flight of, to England, 
301 ; instrument of Roman Ca- 
tholicism in England, 306, 307 ; 
plots of, 308, 313-315; execution 
of, 315-316. 

Matilda, daughter of Henry I, 86 ; 
claims of, to English throne, 87 ; 
struggle of, with Stephen, 88-90 ; 
Lady of England, 89. 

Maude, Gen. Sir Stanley, 606, 613- 
614. 

Merchant Adventurers, 228, 235, 
241-242, 285-286, 303, 336. 

Merchant gild. See Gild, merchant. 

Merchant or Trading companies, 
336-337. 

Merchant staplers. See Staple. 

Merciless Parliament, 191-192. 

Methodist, 457. 

Middle Ages, end of, 160-162. 

" Middle Europe," state of, 594, 
601, 613. 

Military system, under Anglo- 
Saxons, 22 ; reorganized by Al- 
fred, 30 ; feudal, 73 ; reconstructed 
in Assize of Arms, 106 ; in Statute 
of Winchester, 142 ; reorganized 
by Cromwell, 362-363. 

Millenary Petition, 332. 

Mise of Amiens. See Amiens, Mise 
of. 



Model Parliament, 148-149. 

Monasteries, influence of, 16-17; 
effect of Statute of Mortmain on, 
143 ; condition of, 261 ; dissolu- 
tion of, 261-264. 

Monk, General, 372, 382. 

Monmouth, Duke of, 394, 395; up- 
rising of, 399-400 ; death of, 400. 

Monopolies, under Elizabeth, 323 ; 
overthrow of, 343 ; revival of, 
under Charles I, 351. 

Montfort, Simon de, and Henry III, 
130; in Barons' War, 131-132; 
wins battle of Lewes, 132 ; gov- 
ernment of, 132-1.34 ; parliament 
of, 133-1.34 ; defeat and death of, 
135. 

Montrose, Earl and Marquis of, 
364, 371. 

More, Sir Thomas, 246-247, 254, 255, 
272 ; execution of, 257. 

Mortimer's Cross, battle of, 214, 
233. 

Mount Badon, 6. 

Municipal Corporation Act, of 1835, 
642, 645 ; of 1882, 645. 

Nanking, treaty of, 517. 

Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte), 
475 ; and War of Second Coali- 
tion, 478 ; colonial policy of, 481 ; 
and Peace of Amiens, 479-482 ; 
attempt of, to invade England, 
482-483 ; emperor of the French, 
483; and War of Third Coali- 
tion, 484 ; erects the Continental 
System, 484-485 ; career of, alter 
1808, 486-487. 

Naseby, battle of, 364. 

Natal, 581, 651. 

National Debt, 423, 436, 437, 480, 
571. 

Navigation acts, 241, 373, 397, 424, 
439, 4.59, 496, 511. 

Nelson, Admiral, 478, 483, 484. 

Netherlands, importance of, to Eng- 
land, 292-293; revolt of, against 
Spain, 301, 311 ; interests of Eng- 
lish Protestants in, 335. See also 
Holland. 

Neville's Cross, battle of, 169. 

New Forest, 82 note 2. 



INDEX. 



45 



Newfoundland, 579, 581, 649, 653. 

New Zealand, 579, 581, 591, 616, 
649, 653. 

Nile, battle of, 478. 

Non-conformists (Roman Catholics, 
Presbyterians, Independents, Bap- 
tists, Quakers, etc.), 322; under 
Charles II, 389, 391 ; and declara- 
tion of indulgence, 402, 403 ; after 
1688, 410, 421, 497; admitted to 
Oxford and Cambridge, 524. 

Non-jurors, 410. 

Normandy, first connection of, with 
England, 60-61 ; under William I, 
66 ; bequest of, to Robert, 81 ; 
conquest of, by Henry I, 84 ; 
given to Henry II, 90 ; seizure of, 
by Philip Augustus, 113, 121. 

Normans, first coming of, to Eng- 
land, 60-61 ; victory of, at Hast- 
ings, 69-70 ; fusion of, with Eng- 
lish, 91. 

North, Lord, 462; ministry of, 462, 
464 ; later political career, 470, 471 . 

Northampton, Assize of. See 
Assize of Northampton. 

Northampton, battle of, 213. 

Northcliffe, Lord, 568, 600. 

Northumberland (John Dudley), 
Duke of, head of council under 
Edward VI, 276 ; policy of, 276- 
277 ; and Lady Jane Grey con- 
spiracv, 277-279 ; execution of, 
279. 

Gates, Titus, tales of, 393. 

O'Connell, Daniel, 509, 510. 

Oflfa, king of Mercia, 18. 

Oldcastle, Sir John, 202-203. 

Omdurman, battle of, 540. 

Opium War, 517. 

Orange Free State, 581, 651. 

Ordeals, 51. 

Orlando, Vittorio, 607, 608, 614. 

Oswiu, king of Northumbria, 12, 14, 

18. 
Oxford (Harley), Earl of, 433. 
Oxford, Provisions of, 130-131. 
Oxford Reformers, 246-247. 

Pacifist Movement (1917), 606-607. 
Palmer ston. Lord, 505 ; and Cri- 



mean War, 514-515 ; death of, 
521 ; mentioned, 628 note. 

Paris, treaty of 1763, 453-454; 
treaty of 1783, 466-467 ; treaty of 
1856, 514-515, 520. 

Parliament, early use of name of, 
129, 130 ; first great parliament, 
133-134 ; parliament of Edward I, 
148-149 ; under Edward III, 164- 
165; the Good, 177-178; attack 
of, on church, 179-180; and 
Richard II, 190-195 ; powers of, 
under Henry V, 203-204; posi- 
tion of, under Henry VII, 239- 
240 ; supports Henry VIII in his 
attack on the church, 256-257 ; 
upholds Mary in her policy, 281, 
283; under Elizabeth, 290, 308- 
310 ; representation in, under 
Elizabeth and James I, 309-310, 
329; position of, after 1603, 
329-330 ; opposition of, to James 

I, 334-335, 342-343; to Charles 

II, 344-345 ; draws up Petition 
of Right, 346; summoned in 1640, 
353; dissolved, 354; of 1640 
(Long), 354; reform work of, 354- 
356; schism in, 356-357, 362; 
becomes only a Rump, 368 ; 
Rump Parliament, 368-374 ; Bare- 
bones Parliament, 374-375 ; under 
Instrument of Government, 375, 
379 ; under Hvndde Petition and 
Advice, 380 ; restoration of Rump, 
and of Presbyterian members, 
382; convention, 3S2, 384; work 
of, 384-385 ; Cavalier Parliament, 
385 ; reaction of, in religious 
matters, 385-386; and Charles 
II, 387 ; Cavalier, and finances, 
389; passes Test Act, 392; 
struggle in, over Exclusion Bill, 
394 ; opposition of, to James II, 
401 ; and Revolution of 1688, 408- 
409 ; controls purse, 422-423 ; con- 
dition of, eighteenth century, 436- 
437, 458, 466, 468-469; reforms 
in, 468-469; after 1815, 494; 
passes Gag Laws, 495 ; need of 
reform in, 497 ; and electoral re- 
form (1832), 499-501; farther 
reform demanded by chartists, 



46 



INDEX. 



J 



Parliament (continued) . 

507; reform (1867), 522; reform 
(1884), 531 ; Home Rule measures 
in, 533-534, 535 536; first, under 
electoral reform act of 1918, 570. 
See also Commons, House of; 
Lords, Hoiise of. 

Parliament Act of ipii, 561, 640. 

Parnell, Charles Stewart, 530, 531, 
534. 

Partition treaties, 428. 

Peace Conference of 1919, 614. 

Peasants' Revolt of 1381, causes of, 
184-185 ; events of, 185-188. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 495 ; opposes Ro- 
man Catholic emancipation, 497 ; 
prime minister, 505 ; abolishes ex- 
port duties and repeals corn laws, 
508-509. 

Penda, king of Mercia, 10, 12. 

Peninsular War, 486-487. 

Penn, Admiral, 377, 396. 

Penn, William, 396. 

Pershing, Gen. John, 604, 609. 

Peterloo, massacre of, 494-495. 

Petition of Right, 346-347. 

Philip Augustus, struggle of, with 
kings of England, 108, 110, 111; 
summons John, 112-113; seizes 
lands of John, 113-114; proposed 
crusade of, against John, 115 ; and 
battle of Bouvines, 115. 

Philip II, king of Spain, marries 
Mary Tudor, 283; influence of, 
280, 285, 288 ; attitude of, during 
Elizal>eth's reign, 292 ; marriage 
of, to Elizabeth of France, 294 ; and 
Burghley, 293, 306 ; determines to 
invade England, 315 ; sends Span- 
ish Armada, 317 ; death of, 318, 

Pilgrimage of Grace, 259-260 ; im- 
portance of, 260. 

Pilgrim Fathers. See Independents. 

Pinkie, battle of, 275. 

Pitt, William, the elder, character 
and position of, 449-450 ; policy of, 
450; success of , 452 ; fall of (1760), 
453 ; recall of, to office, 460, 461 ; 
position of (1766), 461; becomes 
Earl of Chatham, 461 ; urges con- 
ciliation with America, 464, 466. 

Pitt, William, the younger, 470; 



administration of, 471-479 ; char- 
acter and work of, 471-472 ; and 
Hastings, 473 ; and French Revo- 
lution, 474 ; refuses further re- 
form measures, 476 ; and union 
with Ireland, 476-477 ; recalled as 
minister, 482 ; and War of Third 
Coalition, 482-484; death of, 
484. 

Plassey, battle of, 450-451. 

Pleas, Common, 119, 141 and note. 

Pleas of the Crown, 86, 104, 119, 
133. 

Poitiers, battle of, 169. 

Pole, Michael de la, 190, 191. 

Pole, William de la, 208. 

Poor laws, Elizabethan, 304, 324, 
351 ; of 1795, 493 ; of 1834, 503, 
512. 

Post Office, 635. 

Poynings' Law, 236 and note 3. 

Prayer book. See Book of Common 
Prayer. 

Presbyterians, views of, 320-321 ; in 
Long Parliament, 358, 364; al- 
liance of, with Scots, 362 ; in con- 
trol of Long Parliament, 364-365 ; 
driv^eii out l^y Pride, 368 ; in parlia- 
ment of 1654, 379 ; see also Non- 
conformists. 

Preston, battle of, 368. 

Pretender, the. See Charles Ed- 
ward; James. 

Pride's Purge, 368. 

Prime minister, 441 and note ; 449, 
463, 471, 505, 506; position of, in 
the British system of government, 
642. 

Prince of Wales, title of, 139; Al- 
bert Edward, son of George V, 
557, 619, 641 note, 651. 

Protector, the. See Cromwell, Oliver. 

Puritans, early histon,^ of, 318-319 ; 
and question of investments, 319- 
320 ; division among, 321 ; and 
Archbishop Laud, 350-351 ; in 
Long Parliament, 357-358, 360- 
301. See also Presbyterians; In- 
dependents. 

Pym, John, 347, 354, 359; main 
author of Grand Remonstrance, 
359. 



INDEX. 



47 



Quebec, battle of, 451. 
Queensland, 581, 650. 
Quo Warranto, writ of, 137 and note, 
151. 

Radical party, old, 494 ; unite with 
Whigs, 502 ; attitude toward fur- 
ther reform, 506, 507 ; new party, 
529-530; position of, 535; men- 
tioned, 646. 
Ralegh, Sir Walter, 318, 323, 324, 

332, 339. 
Ramillies, battle of, 429-430. 
Redmond, John, 564. 
Reformation, the, 286-287. 
Religious revival, the, 454-455. 
Revenues, 147, note 1 ; of Norman 
kings, 75, 76, 77, 95 ; raised for 
Richard's ransom, 110; in Magna 
Carta, 117, 119 ; of Edward I, 147 ; 
of Edward III, 164-167 ; of Henry 
VII, 240-241; of Henry VIII, 
266-267 ; insufficiency of, under 
Elizabeth, 289 ; James I and, 
334; Charles I and, 345; under 
Charles II, 384-385; under Wil- 
liam III, 421 ; from crown lands, 
641 note. 

Richard I, character of, 108-109; 
promises of, 109 ; ransom of, 109— 
110; death of, 111; results of 
reign of, 111-112. 

Richard 11, accession of, 183 ; char- 
acter of reign of, 183, 195-196; 
attitude of, toward Peasants' Re- 
volt, 186-187; misrule of, 190; 
legislation under, 192-193 ; dep- 
osition of, 194-195. 

Richard III, as Earl of Gloucester, 
218 ; usurpation of, 220-221 ; pro- 
claimed king, 221 ; career of, as 
king, 221-222 ; defeat of, at Bos- 
worth Field, 222. 

Ridolfi Plot, 307-308. 

Roberts, Lord, 542. 

Roman Catholic Church. See 
Church, Roman CaihoUc. 

Romans in Britain, 2. 

Roses, Wars of the, period I, 210- 
212; period II, 213-215; period 
III, 215-218 ; results of, 222. 

Roundheads, 361-362. 



Rumania, enters Great War, 599 ; 

defeated, 599-600. 
Rump ParUament, 368-374. 
Russell, Sir John, 495, 500, 505, 508, 

520. 
Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), 

527-528. 
Ruthven raid, 314. 
Rye House "Plot, 395. 
Ryswick, treaty of, 419, 428. 

Sacheverell, Dr., sermon of, 430. 

St. Albans, first battle of, 211; sec- 
ond battle of, 214. 

St. John, Henry. See Bolingbroke. 

St. John, Oliver, 342. 

Salisbury, Lord, ministries of, 505- 
506, 533, 534-535 ; on the death of 
Queen Victoria, 544-545. 

San Stefano, treaty of, 528. 

Saratoga, surrender of Burgoyne at, 
465. 

Saxons, on continent, 3-4 ; migra- 
tion of, 4-5 ; settlement of, 5 ; 
tribes of, 7 note. 

Scotland, Columba in, 11-12; Celtic 
church in, 14-15 ; Danes in, 22 ; 
united Picts and Scots in, 34, 36; 
and Cnut, 58 ; quarrel of Mac})eth 
and Malcolm in, 63 ; under David, 
89 ; and Edward I, 144-146, 150, 
155-156 ; wins independence at 
Bannockburn, 157 ; independence 
of, recognized, 158 ; alliance of, 
with France, 162-163 ; and Henry 
IV, 200; Edward IV and, 218; 
defeat of, at Flodden, 249 ; rela- 
tions of, with Henry VII, 243-244, 
265-266 ; struggle between Eng- 
land and France for the possession 
of, 273, 275; alliance of, with 
France, 275 ; reformation in, 295, 
296 ; English attack on French in, 
295-296; under Mary, Queen of 
Scots, 297-301 ; revolt of, against 
Charles T, 352-353 ; bargain of, with 
Long Parliament, 362 ; supports 
Charles II, 371-372 ; defeated by 
Cromwell, 372 ; policy of Cromwell 
toward, 376 ; rising of Highlanders 
in, 416 ; massacre of Glencoe, 416 ; 
union of, with England, 431-433. 



48 



INDEX. 



Scutage, 96-97, 133; in Magna 
Carta, 117, 119. 

Secretariat, 633-634. 

Sedgemoor, battle of, 399-400. 

Self-denying Ordinance, 364. 

Serbia, 583, 584, 585, 587. 

Seven bishops, trial of, 403. 

Seven Years' War, 448-453. 

Seymours, struggle of, with the 
Howards, 268-269. 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 391, 392, 393, 
394, 395. 

Sheriff, in Anglo-Saxon time, 44 ; 
under William I, 75 ; at height of 
his power, 95 ; attack on, by Henry 
II, 102 ; in Assize of Clarendon, 
104 ; decaying power of, 105, 106 ; 
in Magna Carta, 120. 

Ship money, levies of, 352 ; forbid- 
den, 356. 

Shire, 43-44. 

Shire Court, 37, 43, 44, 45, 58, 96-97, 
105, 204. 

Sicily, crown of, 127-128. 

Simnel, Lambert, conspiracy of, "235. 

Sims, Adm. W. S., 604. 

Sinn Fein, 564, 565-566, 570, 572-573. 

Slavery, abolition of, in British 
colonies, 502. 

Sluys, battle of, 168. 

Smith, Adam, 468. 

Smuts, Gen. Jan, 569, 617. 

Solemn Engagement of the Army, 
365. 

Solway Moss, battle of, 266. 

Somerset (Edward Seymour), Duke 
of, family of, 268, 269 ; chosen Pro- 
tector, 269; policy of, 270; atti- 
tude of, toward reformation, 271- 
272; attitude toward enclosures, 
273 ; attitude toward Scotland, 
275; fall of, 275-276; execution 
of, 277. 

South Africa, wars in, 529 ; Union 
of, 580, 617, 631, 649, 651-652. 
See also Boers, Natal, Transvaal, 
Orange Free State, Cape Colony. 

South Sea Bubble, 437. 

South Sea Company, 431, 437. 

Spanish Succession, war of, 427-431. 

Speaker, in the House of Commons, 
643. 



Stamford Bridge, battle of, 68. 

Staple, merchants of the, 167, 228, 
285. 

Star Chamber, origin of, 238, 310; 
abolition of, 356. 

Statutes, of Westminster, first, 138; 
of Rhuddlan, 139; of Merchants, 
139-140 ; of entails, 140, 151 ; of 
Westminster, second, 141, 143; of, 
Winchester, 142 ; of Mortmain, 
143-144 ; of Quia Ew,ptores, 152- 
153, 193; of Laborers, 175-176, 
304; of Praemunire, 179, 193; 
of Provisors, 179-193 ; of Liveries 
and Maintenance, 193 ; de Haere- 
tico Comburendo, 201 ; of Suprem- 
acy (1534), 257; of Six Articles, 
264 ; of Six Articles repealed, 271 ; 
of Supremacy (1559), 290, 291, 
322; of Uniformity (1559), 290, 
291, 320, 322; of Apprentices, 
304 ; for the relief of the poor, 
304; against the Jesuits; 314; 
Petition of Right, 346; Trien- 
nial, 355; Corporation, 385, 497; 
Uniformity (1662), .385-386; Con- 
venticle, 386; Five Mile, 385- 
386; Test, 392, 401, 497; Habeas 
Corpus, 398, 476, 494; of Settle- 
ment, 407-408, 422, 433; Tolera- 
tion. 410, 415, 421 ; Mutiny, 421 ; 
Triennial, 422 ; of Union with 
Scotland, 431-433; Riot, 435; 
Stamp, 459, 461; Libel, 468; 
of Union with Ireland, 476 ; six 
(Gag Laws), 495; Roman Cath- 
olic emancipation, 497, 510 ; par- 
liamentary reform, 501, 522, 
531, 563, 566-568, 641; Mu- 
nicipal corporations, 503, 642, 
645 ; ballot, 548, 641 ; poor law, 
642; Education, 503, 524; Ca- 
nadian, 518 ; Australian, of 1850, 
519 ; Irish Church Disestablish- 
ment, 524 ; Welsh church dis- 
establishment, 563 ; Irish Land, 
524 ; Army reform, 524 ; Royal • 
titles, 525 ; local government, 
534, 535, 647, 648; recent, of a 
social and industrial character, 
537, 538 ; Australian Federation, 
541 ; Home Rule, 563-564 ; par- 



INDEX. 



49 



Hament, 561, 640; conscription, 
595-596, 609-610; restoration of 
order in Ireland, 572. 

Stephen, claim of, 87-88 ; election 
of, as king, 88 ; war of, with 
Matilda, 88-90 ; and treaty of 
Wallingford, 91 ; results of reign of, 
91-92. 

Stop of the Exchequer, 391, 39G, 
423 and note. 

Strafford (Thomas Wentworth) , 
Earl of, 346; "thorough" policy 
of, 349 ; advice of, 353-354 ; im- 
peachment and execution of, 355. 

Stuart, Charles Edward. See 
Charles Edward, the young pre- 
tender. 

Stuart, James. See James, the old 
pretender. 

Submarine warfare, 601, 603-604. 

Suez Canal, 525. 

Suffolk (Michael de la Pole), Earl 
of. See Pole, Michael de la. 

Sydney, Sir Algernon, 395 and note. 

Taxes, 147 note ; under Normans, 
76-78 ; under Henry II, 95, 106- 
107 ; under Edward I, 147 ; under 
Edward III, 165; poll tax of 
1381, 185; control of, by parlia- 
ment, 204 ; question of, under the 
Stuarts, 342 ; illegal, forbidden, 
by Petition of Right, 347 ; under 
William III, 422-423; under 
Walpole, 440-441 ; imposed on 
American colonies, 459-402. See 
also Danegeld; Benevolences. 

Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 532. 

Tewkesbury, battle of, 218. 

Theodore of Tarsus, work of, 15- 
16 ; influence of, 17. 

Thirty-nine Articles, 276-277, 309, 
319, 347. 

Thirty Years' War, 339-341, 362. 

Tientsin, treaty of, 517. 

Tinchebrai, battle of, 84. 

Tithe War in Ireland, 510. 

Tories, origin of the name, 394 note ; 
party history of, under William III, 
419-420; under Anne, 425, 428, 
430 ; and Hanoverian siiccession, 
433-435; new party of, 463; in 



power (1815), 494; breach in 
party of, 495 ; take the name Con- 
servatives, 502. 

Towns, growth of, under Stephen, 
91 ; trade of, under Edward III, 
106-167; gilds in, 166, 226-227; 
advance of, 195 ; many, not repre- 
sented in parliament, 409 ; condi- 
tion in 1815, 493 ; extension of 
representation in, 501, 522, 531 ; 
improvements in, 503, 512. See 
also Boroughs; Vill. 

Townshend, Charles, revenue policy 
of, 461 ; death of, 462. 

Townshend, Gen. Charles, capture 
of, in Mesopotamia, 599 ; avenged, 
606. 

Towton, battle of, 215. 

Trade and commerce, under Ed- 
ward I, 147, 154 ; under Edward 

III, 103, 165-167 ; under Richard 
II, 192 ; encouraged by Edward 

IV, 219-220; growth of, in 
fifteenth century, 228 ; attitude of 
Henry VII toward, 241-242 ; im- 
provement of, under Elizabeth, 
302-303; attitude of James 
toward, 336-337; under Crom- 
well, 372-373, 376-377; under 
Charles II, 397 ; under William III, 
424-425 ; with South America after 
treaty of Utrecht, 431, 442 ; with 
South America, causes " War of 
Jenkins's Ear," 442-443 ; with 
China and the East, 516-517 ; 
from 1852 to 1862, 547. 

Trade Unions, 520, 521, 524, 525, 
547-548. 

Transvaal, .542, 581, 651. 

Treasury, 632-633. 

Treaties, commercial, made by Ed- 
ward IV, 220 ; Magnus Intercur- 
sus, 236, 242 ; others made by 
Henry VII, 242 ; made by Crom- 
well, 374. 377. 

Trent, Council of, 288, 297. 

Trent affair, 519-520. 

Trinidad, 579, 654. 

Triple Alliance, 552. 

Troyes, treaty of, 205, 206. 

Tun. See Vill. 

Tyler, Wat, 186, 187 note. 



50 



INDEX. 



Ulster and Home Rule, 564-565, 
571, 582. 

United Kingdom, 477, 582; govern- 
ment of, 623-645. 

United States, war between Great 
Britain and (1812), 485; treaties 
between, 511 ; disputes between, 
519-520; in the Great War, 597, 
602, 610-611, 612-613. 

Utrecht, treaty of, 431, 442. 

Verdun, battle of, 596-597 ; French 
successes at, 600. 

Versailles, treaty of (1919), 614- 
615. 

Vestiarian controversy, 319-320. 

Victoria, Queen, accession of, 503 ; 
personality and influence of, 504, 
544-545 ; parties and ministries 
under, 505-506 ; and Trent affair, 
519 ; proclaimed Empress of India, 
526 ; death of, 544 ; political in- 
fluence of, 628 note. 

Victorian Era, 504-505, 545-550. 

Vienna, Congress of, 487 ; men- 
tioned, 590. 

Vill, villein, villeinage, in Anglo- 
Saxon times, 45-47 ; conditions in 
1066, 64-65 ; under William I, 80- 
81 ; depression of, under Stephen, 
91; in Magna Carta, 118; from 
Norman conquest to Black Death, 
171-174; effect of Black Death 
upon, 174-175; revolt of, in 1381, 
184-188 ; growing freedom of bond 
classes, 195-196 ; causes for the 
decay of villeinage, 222-224. 

Wakefield, battle of, 214. 

"Wales, wars of Harold against, 63 ; 
and Henry II, 94 ; and Henry III, 
130 ; conquered by Edward I, 138- 
139 ; rising of, under Madoc, 146, 
150 ; joins the Percys against 
Henry IV, 199-200; united to 
England by Henry VIII, 266. 

Wallace, William, 155-156. 

Wallingford, treaty of, 91, 93. 

Walpole, Robert, 434, 436, 437; 
ministry of, 437-443 ; character of, 
438 ; policy of, 438-441 ; opposi- 
tion to, 442 ; fall of, 443. 



Wandering of the Nations, 2-3, 23. 
Warbeck, Perkin, conspiracy of, 

235-236 and note 1. 
War of Austrian succession. See 

Austrian succession. 

War of the Spanish succession. 
See Spanish succession. 

War, the Great (1914-1918), causes 
of, 583-587; outline of, 588-614. 

Wars, Balkan (1912, 1913), 583- 
584. 

Wars of the Roses. See Roses, 
Wars of the. 

War Cabinet of 191 7, 568, 570, 600, 
608, 619. 

War Office, 633. 

Warwick, Earl of, 211, 212, 213, 215; 
character of, 217 ; death of, 218. 

Warwick (John Dudley), Earl of. 
See Northumberland, Duke of. 

Washington, George, 447 ; com- 
mander-in-chief of American Army, 
465. 

Waterloo, battle of, 487. 

Wei Hai Wei, 655. 

Wellington (Arthur Wellesley), 
Duke of, in India, 481, 484; in 
Peninsular War, 486-487; at 
Waterloo, 487 ; at Congress of 
Vienna, 487 ; and Roman-Catholic 
emancipation, 497 ; and electoral 
reform, 500. 

Wentworth, Sir Thomas. See 
Strafford, Earl of. 

Wesley, John, 455-457. 

Wessex, under Ecgbert, 18-19 ; un- 
der Alfred, 30-33 ; expansion of, 
under Alfred's successors, 33-36 ; 
under Eadgar, 36-39. 

Western Australia, 581, 650. 

Westminster, treaty of (1756), 448. 

Westminster catechism, 365. 

Whigs, origin of the name, 394, note ; 
party history of, under William III, 
419-420; under Anne, 425, 428, 
430 ; in power under George I, 
434-436; under George III, 463, 
466, 470 ; fall of, in 1784, 471 ; in 
power after 1832, 502 ; take name 
Liberals, 502. 

" Whips," party, 632, 638. 

Whitby, Synod of, 14. 



INDEX. 



51 



Wiclif, John, 181, 183, 188, 189. 

Wilkes, John, 457-459, 462. 

William the Conqueror, claim of, 
to English throne, 66 ; crowned 
king, 71, 721 ; introduces feudal- 
ism, 72-74 ; government and ad- 
ministration of, 74-76 ; and 
church, 78-79; death of, 81. 

William II (called Rufus), 81-82. 

William III (of Orange), 394; in- 
vited to English throne, 404 ; ac- 
cepts invitation, 405; offered and 
accepts crown, 407 ; foreign policy 
of, 411-412; declares war against 
France, 411-412; character of, 
415 ; and Scotland, 416 ; wins 
battle of Boyne and defeats 
Irish, 416-418; position of, 1690- 
1692, 418-419; character of, as 
king, 420 ; legislation, finance, 
and commerce under, 420-425 ; 
death of, 425. 

William IV, accession of, 499 ; atti- 
tude toward Reform Bill, 500 ; 
death of, 503. 



William I, German Emperor, 615. 

William II, German Emperor, 585, 
586 ; abdicates, 614-615. 

Wilson, Woodrow, president of the 
United States, 602, 608, 614. 

Winwsed, battle of, 12. 

Witan (wise-men), 8; in tenth cen- 
tury, 42-43 ; similarity of, to Nor- 
man Council, 75. 

Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas, career 
of, 249, 252; diplomacy of, 249- 
251 ; ambition of, 252 ; connection 
of, with divorce of Catherine, 252- 
254 ; fall of, 254 ; and enclosures, 
272-273. 

Woman's Suffrage, agitation for, 
563, 567. 

Worcester, battle of, 372. 

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, rebellion of, 
283. 

York, Richard, Duke of, 210-211, 

212, 213; death of, 214. 
Yorktown, surrender of Cornwallis 

at. 466. 



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